


The House of Good Intentions

by Lemon-Bar (Revenant)



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angel Wings, Angels, Angst, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Family Drama, Family Member Death, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Character Death, Religious Content, Romance, Wingfic, Wings, angel!Justin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-25
Updated: 2013-03-12
Packaged: 2017-12-03 14:57:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 40,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/699486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Revenant/pseuds/Lemon-Bar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, Jack Kinney never gave it much thought but now, at the end of his life, he no longer has the luxury of avoiding that kind of introspection. Jack's about to learn that putting your life back together is difficult, even with an enigmatic blond to guide him. But some damage is irreparable; some hurts, unforgivable; and some truths, impossible to accept.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N:** This story is for Claire, who asked for a fic that was a _City of Angels_ and _Meet Joe Black_ hybrid (with a happier ending). It spiraled somewhat out of control and became perhaps a more thorough exploration of the Kinney family than the original plot request entailed.  
> 
> 
>   
> **Read @** [LiveJournal](http://britin-manor.livejournal.com/14893.html)  
> 

 

  


**Prologue:**

  


_____________________________________________________  


  
The snow is falling. Drifting slow and listless, soaking up all the color and the sound and the life until there's nothing left but grey stillness and silence. Unbroken.

He moves away from the huddle of dark figures, from the murmurs and the muffled hiccupping sobs with no other purpose than to find a space where he can breathe. Once he starts walking though, he can't seem to bring himself to stop. 

Fumbling, he pulls a carefully folded tissue from his pocket, picks up the joint hidden inside and then almost drops it as he startles: a hand dropping onto his shoulder. "Hey."

Brian offers an inauthentic smile, perching the joint between his lips as he moves to light it. "Hey, Mikey." He braces himself for more words, still stumbling his way between the stone monuments slowly being obscured by swirling whiteness. 

"Hey," Michael says again, this time stronger. He changes his grip, jerks the shoulder he's grasping until Brian finds himself coming to an abrupt halt; finds himself being forced to meet his friend's wide brown eyes.

He can tell with one glance that Michael's still searching for the magic words. The ones that will make everything better; absolve the hurt and grief and anger and somehow put it all back in its place. Make it acceptable and easy. Return everything to how it was before.

The cluster of people they've abandoned are no longer visible, the thickness of the snowflakes buffeting about obscuring almost everything, narrowing the vastness of the world down to this, down to them standing still, surrounded by smooth stone etched with memory. 

Brian pulls the lit joint from between his lips, holding it out. "Want some?"

"No."

With a shrug Brian takes another long pull, his gaze drifting away. He doesn't want sympathy, isn't interested in pity. There's a part of him that thinks he should probably be feeling something about now: a sense of loss, maybe sadness, but he's as grey and silent as the graveyard he's standing in. Muted.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees her. She's kneeling beneath the outstretched, naked branches of a tree. Her arms curled over the front of an angular stone block, her face tilted down to the snow-covered grass, the source of her quiet misery.

Time and weather have ravaged her, turned once-pale stone dark, lined her face with streaks so that she's perpetually crying. Her arched wings curled forward, offering fragile shelter to the marker on which she's braced. The wings still show hints of her original pallor, crisp and pure. Contrasting.

"Brian," Michael asks, his voice distant, urgent. "What? What is it?"

It shouldn't be a surprise. Nothing should surprise him these days, but it does. Brian stands there staring at the name feeling as if he's been struck hard enough to wind him. He pulls the joint from between his lips and then forgets he's holding it. It drops down onto the snow, where the dampness smothers the embers, the fat white flakes covering it.

"Jesus," Michael murmurs from the opposite bank of a vast ocean of screaming hollowness. He steps between Brian and the grave, his arms coming up and wrapping around Brian's body like a net. "It's going to be okay, Brian."

It sounds like a lie when Michael says it but right then Brian realizes that it's true. He can hear the same words echoing back at him, spoken by a different voice that rings with quiet conviction. The knowledge settles over him like a blanket: it will be okay. It's as quiet and absolute as the snow falling around him, covering up the world.

He can't recall when he became so accepting of life and the bitter sorrows it dealt him but thinks instead that he knows exactly the reason…


	2. Chapter 2

There's a draft in the main window of the master bedroom. For the longest time Jack hadn't believed it was actually there, but he got tired of hearing about its supposed existence. He'd given in and paid good money to have the windows in the house replaced but Joan kept bitching: "They didn't seal the window right. You'll have to call them back."

Jack never called anyone back to fix the windows and Joan had started sleeping on the other side of the bed. His side. That first winter with the new sleeping arrangements had been enough to convince him that the draft was real, that maybe Joan had a point. He never got around to making the call though, and now the cold air creeping into the room at night seems like a metaphor.

"What are you doing out of bed?" she asks, her voice low and rough with sleep.

"I'm looking out the window," he says, rolling his eyes. 

The moon is full; low and bright and heavy enough that it feels as if any moment now it will drop right out of the sky and crush the house. Jack finds himself hoping for that. The cold air hasn't numbed him yet but the prickling chill's enough to distract him from the pain that had called him awake. It's almost constant now. Jack can feel the heavy weight of something, just there, so close and just waiting; barely kept at bay. He can't name it; doesn't want to put a name to the feeling because he's not ready to face it. 

He knows what it is just the same. It's ever-present, lurking close in the corner of his mind.

There's a soft rustling behind him. Joan's shifted in bed, maybe turned around to face him. He doesn't look at her, keeps his attention on the moonlight, keeps waiting for that big bright sphere to come tumbling down on top of him.

"Are you coming back to bed?" She's awake enough now that her voice has smoothed out. Slick and imperious; he can practically hear her judgment of him.

Letting the curtain fall closed, Jack turns toward the bedroom door, starts walking. "No."

The house is quiet. Empty. He knows that it wasn't always like that. Knows that there was a time when Claire and Brian filled the space up with unbearable chaos just by being there, but he can't remember it. There must have been moments when they turned their stereos up loud, run down the stairs or raised their voices as they bickered. There must have been moments where Jack had to tell them, "Shut up, for the love of god!" They were teenagers after all, that's the kind of shit teenagers do. The memories are murky, at best.

What he does remember is the house swallowed up with the sounds of a baby crying, Joan clattering around in the kitchen as she cooked or cleared away. Always clattering, always busy. He remembers clicking the volume up on the television set, up and up. Watching the game and wishing that, for just one god damned minute, things could just be quiet.

The silence now is eerie. Haunting. Memories skulking around every corner, resurrected in his mind by the oddest of things and he finds himself moving through the house with the lights off, like he can maybe avoid them if he just sneaks around carefully enough. 

Soon enough, he's twisting the key in the lock that Joan installed on the liquor cabinet all those years ago, in preparation for the new addition that no one wanted. "Christ," Jack mutters to himself. "What a time to become a good fucking Catholic." 

Alcohol doesn't chase the memories away, but sometimes it helps him get beyond them.

There's a bottle of whiskey sitting in the cabinet but only enough remains in it for one mouthful. Jack takes a swig and carries the empty bottle with him to the kitchen. He's never understood why Joan hides her liquor when they have a perfectly serviceable liquor cabinet, but she keeps it in the damned kitchen cupboard with the peanut butter and the fucking cereal. 

Shoving aside a box of frosted Mini-Wheats Jack's fingers curl around a familiar glass shape. The bitch has a full bottle of gin back there.

He replaces her gin with the empty bottle of whiskey, idly wondering if she'll notice. Whether she does or not won't make much of a difference he figures, because she won't say anything either way.

Uncapping his prize, he takes a long swig straight from the mouth of the bottle, washing down dreams in black-and-white: graveyards and dark pits and dirt and pain. Every step he takes these days is shadowed by a pressing imminence. He tries to find the humor in it but fails every damned time. All he's found so far is self-pity.

He's old, but not old enough to take the surprise out of the news that he's dying. He'd sat in that leather chair and laughed and rubbed his suddenly sweaty palms on his thighs. Jack remembers asking the doc for the prognosis. The answer had only made him laugh harder.

He hadn't been laughing when Joan had started to cry. No, he'd shut his mouth and glowered. As if his death would mean anything to her.

He's old and dying, counting down the days before his soul gets chased out of his cancer-riddled body, and there isn't a damned thing to be proud of. Not a damned person out there who he thinks might actually give a shit when his time's up.

"Well. That, at least, is a place to start," someone says.

Jack spins on his heel, turning to face the stranger. Even as he turns, his senses screaming at him that someone's broken into his home, into his _kitchen_ , he can't find it in himself to be afraid. Somehow, it feels like he's been expecting exactly this. Like he's been waiting, and now he feels tangled knot inside him ease a little. Finally, a part of him sighs. _Finally_.

There are four chairs tucked in around the kitchen table and perched on the back of the one directly opposite where Jack's standing is a young man. Jack waits for the panic or the fear to kick in but it remains stubbornly absent. He feels as if he's known this kid all his life, like the presence of this stranger is absolutely right, is _good_. 

It's been a long time since anything in Jack's life felt good.

"Before you ask," the kid says, raising a hand to forestall a question Jack didn't even know he'd been about to give voice. "I figure you need at least half of this before you actually believe me." He's holding out a bottle of Jim Beam Devil's Cut whiskey.

The hand proffering the whiskey and the arm attached to it and the whole of kid's body is glowing faintly, haloed in light. He radiates youth and innocence, his skin smooth and pale, his lips full and hair bright and blond, but Jack knows this isn't a kid when he looks into those blue eyes: deep and unfathomable as an ocean. 

"Jesus," Jack mutters, forgetting the stolen gin in his hand and reaching automatically to uncap the offered whiskey.

The blond tips his head to the side, wincing. "Not quite." Then he pushes out one of the kitchen chairs with his foot. "Sit down, Jack."

Jack obeys. "What are you?"

The question earns him a teasing smile. "The first of three ghosts." The little shit even has the audacity to waggle his fingers like he's telling a fucking campfire story.

After a moment, the teasing expression eases, something soft and compassionate creeping across the stranger's face and he says, "You know who I am." 

It's the first time Jack can think of where anyone's looked at with that expression. He doesn't like it. It leaves him feeling raw, exposed and vulnerable. He sets the bottle down the table with a clack, swallows thickly and can't help wondering, "It's time, then."

"Not quite." The blond slips off the back of the chair, striding confidentially over to a cupboard where he retrieves a glass, which he carries back to the table. 

"What do you mean?" Jack watches the deeply amber liquid spilling over the lip of the bottle as the kid pours.

"Drink up," the stranger instructs, recapping the bottle.

Again, he obeys. Despite the kid's insistence and his own sense of familiarity, Jack's certain he's never seen this young man before. There's an answer that's niggling but he chokes it back. 

Jack knows a thing or two about religion. Couldn't really avoid it given his heritage, to say nothing of who he married. Maybe he puts on a good front, voicing disdain for Joan's Sunday morning rituals and scorning faith as often as he curses it, but Jack's Irish born and raised and some things are just ingrained. Force of habit.

If he's drunk enough, and he usually is, he still catches himself muttering prayers whenever he passes a graveyard. But that doesn't mean … it _couldn't_ mean…

"There's an ugly truth in here, somewhere," the blond murmurs, and when Jack looks he sees the kid running his fingers over the thick wood cross hanging to the left of the back door. It's a relic from Jack's childhood, one that he hates. Joan loves the thing. 

When he glances around his kitchen trying to see it like a stranger might, he curses under his breath. Religion is everywhere. Even on the damned counter where he catches the kid flipping through a church pamphlet listing coming events.

For some reason beyond his understanding Jack can't stand to be associated with the annual children's spelling bee, the church choir performance, or the fall bake sale. "It's my wife's." He knocks back his whiskey and reaches for the bottle.

The blond's eyes unfocus and then, just as quickly, clear. "Joan."

Jack takes another drink, his eyes narrowed. "Who are you?"

"Jack. You know who I am." 

"If I knew I wouldn't be asking!" He wonders what would happen if he took a swing at the kid. Frankly, he's a little concerned about the possible consequences.

"You _do_ know," the kid tells him. "Just give yourself a second." 

It's a struggle to keep fighting the answer, but Jack keeps at it. Sitting there and staring as the kid wanders around, calm as you please, tiptoeing his fingers along the green-covered book of psalms propped against the side of fridge, sandwiched between Betty Crocker's cookbook and a stack of bills. 

What the hell is Joan doing, keeping a damned book of psalms in the kitchen?

The kid's eyes shift, meet his gaze with an infinite patience, and Jack gives in. The kid's right, Jack does know.

With a soft smile, the kid says, "You can call me Justin."

"Justin," Jack repeats, testing it. "Am I dying?"

"You know that you are."

"I mean right now," Jack clarifies. "Am I going to die right now?"

"Soon."

Probably the natural response to having his death confirmed so plainly should be fear. Jack isn't afraid. He feels calm, and maybe a little resigned. "Why are you here?"

That, at least, seems to take some consideration. Justin mulls that for a bit before he answers. "You're good at managing things, aren't you, Jack?" He retakes his perch, settling on the back of the chair and Jack's momentarily discomfited by the fact that, once again, the kid's perching on the two inch wide chair-back, feet tucked on the narrow ledge that the back of the seat leaves, and somehow managing not to topple the entire thing over. That's got to be breaking some science law or something.

"This is the one thing you can't 'manage'," Justin tells him.

"What?"

The kid shrugs, like the answer's obvious. "Your death. You can't avoid it. You have no choice but to confront it."

Jack plucks up his glass and takes another long swig. The stinging flavor makes him wince, but it feels good. Familiar. "You sound like my fucking wife."

"Like when she refused to tell your kids about the cancer for you?" Justin says, guilelessly. "I know more than you think."

"You're not going to lecture me about how I'm going to hell for using profanity."

"No, Jack," Justin says. "You're going to hell for a lot more than that." The answer, spoken so plainly, chokes the breath out of him. "Relax." 

"Relax?" Jack snarls. "This isn't a fucking game! This isn't some feel-good goddamned Christmas movie! This is my life!"

Justin leans forward, his hand wrapping around Jack's forearm. "No," he says, unflappable. "This is your death, and it can end however you want it to."

"What are you talking about?"

"You made choices," Justin says, sitting back. "That's what people do. That's why humans were given free will, so they can go out and make choices, and make mistakes and learn from them. But those choices brought you right here to this moment, and the powers that be have decided to give you one more choice before the end."

"Which is what?" Jack scoffs. "To get a glimpse of what the world would be like if I never existed, and then everything will resolve itself and be perfect again?"

Justin's face scrunches up in apparent confusion. "No," he says, slowly. "They gave you me." Then he beams, like Jack should be grateful or something.

Jack doesn't feel grateful. "Stop speaking in circles, you little shit."

The good humor disappears off Justin's face in a flash and in a movement too fast for Jack's eyes to follow, he moves from his perch until he's leaning forward across the table, right up in Jack's face. "Then maybe you'll understand this: you fucked up."

Jack blinks. Shocked. "Are you allowed to swear?"

"You fucked up, and now here you are, and you have one more choice: you can keep ignoring your imminent death, tell me to piss off, and accept where you'll end up."

"Where's that, exactly?" Jack butts in, feeling a little frantic to know.

Justin's eyebrows jerk upward. "I can't tell you."

"Some kind of divine regulation?"

"No." There's something in the kid's tone that makes Jack's spine straighten, something resilient and unflinching, something to be respected and feared. "I'm not here to waste my breath talking to you about the afterlife. I'm not going to stand here and urge you to repent because, in my opinion, that doesn't do shit."

"What are you here to do?" Jack demands. "What? Just tell me!"

"I'm here to help. That's all," Justin says. "You want to give up, stick your head in the sand and pretend everything's okay, then fine. That's an actual choice you can make. I have better things to do than sit around and listen to you bitch and moan about the injustices in your life."

"I did have it hard!"

"Well, get over it! You want sympathy, talk to someone who gives a shit."

Jack shoves his glass away and half-stands, his fists braced on the tabletop. "You're supposed to give a shit!"

"How can you expect me to, when you can't even be bothered?"

"God _dammit_ ," Jack snarls. What the hell had he ever done to deserve this? All his life he'd made sacrifices for people, and now here he is and his own death can't even belong to him. This little prick of a kid has to come in stirring up trouble. "You don't talk to me like that!"

Justin gets right back in his face. "I'll talk to you however I want. I'll do _whatever_ it takes to make you understand. I'm here to help you, Jack Kinney. But you have to want me to."

Just like that, all the anger leaches out of Jack's body, like those were the damned magic words or something. Alaca _zam_. Jack slumps back down in his chair, his head dropping down into his hands and he sighs. "Okay."

After a moment, a warm hand drops down on his shoulder and squeezes once, briefly, the barest contact. "That's a start."

_____________________________________________________

When Jack asked Justin when he was going to die Justin had only said, "Soon". Jack was looking for something a little more specific but he figures it can't be much time at all because the moment Jack finishes his glass of whiskey Justin tells him to go upstairs, take a cold shower and get dressed.

"We're going for a walk," Justin says, when Jack refuses to budge without further explanation.

That isn't much of an answer at all but Jack takes it. He goes upstairs and follows his orders. When he's dressed, Joan follows him back to the kitchen and asks what he wants for breakfast. 

"Nothing," Jack tells her. "I'm going out."

She's wearing that god-awful maroon colored robe that she always buttons right up to the neck. Last Christmas when Jack had been wandering aimlessly through a department store he found a whole rainbow of those robes and realized they aren't actually housecoats at all, they're nightgowns. His wife wears a fucking nightgown over top of her nightgown. He doesn't really know what that means but it irritates him.

One slender eyebrow cocks up, her mouth pinched and straight. Jack thinks that if he held a ruler up to her lips he'd discover that they really did hold a completely straight line. "Out?" she echoes. The disapproval's evident in her tone. "At this hour?"

"I'm going for a walk." He leaves before she can ask any more questions.

He marches down to the end of his driveway and briefly considers which way to turn because it's not like Justin bothered to tell him where they were going, and now the kid's disappeared.

Except not because there he is, hands tucked in the pockets of his jeans, standing casual as you please right there on the side of the road. When he catches Jack's eye Justin tips his head 'come on', and they fall into step.

"I'm not fucking 'making amends' or some bullshit," Jack says, because he feels that should be made clear. He hasn't done anything wrong. 

"This way."

They end up walking in silence. Jack tilts his head down staring as his feet trudging through the brown, crunching leaves piling up in the gutter on the side of the road until they come to rest in front of a black wrought-iron gate.

Glancing up sharply, Jack's suspicions are confirmed. "This is a cemetery." Ignoring him, Justin pulls open the pedestrian gate and holds it, staring pointedly until Jack walks through. "Why did you bring me here?" Jack demands, but he doesn't get any explanation.

Instead, Justin leads him into the bowels of the cemetery, resolutely ignoring all of Jack's questions. In turn, Jack allows himself to feel deliciously maudlin.

There's an early morning mist filling in the gaps between headstones, the grass and dead leaves beneath his feet are stiff with frost. There's no color in the sunrise. The silence is almost suffocating, disturbingly sentient, somehow; Jack feels as if he's being keenly scrutinized by the dead.

Every now and again they pass a grave on which sits a single candle ensconced in colored glass, red or blue, sometimes green. Some tombstones have small flags, wreaths or fake flowers. The vast majority are unadorned. Forgotten.

When they come to a stop it's by a freshly dug, open grave. The diggers only just disappearing down the narrow black-tar road. Jack wishes he hadn't capitulated so easily. He doesn't want to be here, but all the fight left him in that moment, and now he can't bring himself to yell or tell the kid where he can stick whatever bullshit he's got planned.

Justin stands there, gazing down into the dirt depths and says, "Everyone just wants to be loved, don't they?"

Jack snorts. "Love's a bunch of crap. Everyone just wants to be free." This prompts a smile out of the kid, something wistful in his expression, and Jack finds himself continuing, "I keep telling my sonnyboy. I tell him, 'Don't you tie yourself down to one woman'."

Justin meets his gaze. "So, you're free?"

"I'm not free," Jack scoffs. "Not with the Warden watching me like a goddamned hawk."

The corner of the kid's mouth quirks up. Jack wants to tell the little sonofabitch to stop laughing at him, but his own sense of awe and respect keeps him mute. Apparently there are some lines even he isn't prepared to cross. "Hypothetically speaking," the kid says. "Say you're free. What happens when you reach this point?"

"What point?"

"Right here," Justin says, tipping his head back to look down into the open grave. Jack feels like a grade-school kid being taken to a museum so he can better understand the circle of life. Please refer to example A in the chart. "You get right here," Justin continues. "Then what?"

Jack narrows his eyes. "I don't believe in hell."

"Are you sure?" Jack keeps his mouth stubbornly shut, and eventually Justin's expression eases, humor seeping back into it, and he shrugs. "That's convenient."

Memories of long Sundays spent in church, fighting the urge to cling to his mother's hand as the minister spat images of eternal damnation down onto him flicker through Jack's mind. Like his faith, his fear is ingrained. He's almost scared not to believe.

Justin continues, "You don't want to make amends but you're angry and bitter because you don't think there's anyone who's going to stand by you when you die, and actually feel sorry to see you go."

"I did everything I could." Jack rolls his shoulders back. "I have nothing to regret."

The stretching silence makes him shift his gaze back to the blond. Justin's looking at him with an inscrutable gaze. When he catches Jack's look, he says, "I could show you things. Make you see." The offer sounds more like a threat than an offer.

Jack imagines the kinds of things that Justin might show him. Thinks about the things that might be surrounding them right there where they stand, the sorts of things that only someone like Justin could know. Jack doesn't want to see any of it. He doesn't want to hear anything that might be echoing around him in the voices of the departed.

"You're so sure that love is a lie," Justin continues, and Jack turns away, looks down at his feet, at the open grave. He tries to picture his coffin being lowered down there. Imagines himself looking up at his family as they look down: Joan and Clair and Brian. When he tries to picture them crying, he can't.

A square-cut piece of paper obstructs his view and Jack's eyes refocus on the photograph Justin's holding out. "Where did you get this?" he asks, reaching. He holds the picture in both hands, staring, surprised when a genuine laugh shatters the quiet. He's laughing. It feels foreign.

"This is me and my wife," Jack explains, shaking his head fondly. Him and Joanie when they were just two stupid kids who thought they could take on the world. They're dressed up, sitting on the trunk of Jack's convertible, his first car. Joan's laughing, her head tipped back and her smile broad. 

Jesus, he forgot that she used to smile like that. In the picture, Jack's looking at her, smiling and laughing but his eyes are wide open and dazed, Jack looks at his expression in that picture and thinks, "Eureka", he doesn't know why.

"Christ," he says. "That was ages ago."

Young and smitten. As much as he wants to, Jack can't help the wistful smile as he looks at the picture. "We were just a couple of kids, going to some dance. She went to a stuffy Catholic girl's school, but she kept skipping classes and causing all sorts of trouble. She was a firecracker, my Joanie. I remember we danced three songs together and then we left. Drove out to some deserted little spot, and we fucked." The memory feels strong; full of fire and color and heat. He remembers rucking her dress up around her hips, remembers how she'd insisted they put the roof up for privacy, and how the car had steamed around them.

"We were so eager," he says, caught up in the recollection. "I didn't even bother to take her dress off, or that little vest-thing she wore." He'd dragged Joan right out of that gym, past the nuns with their disapproving frowns. He'd whispered in her ear and caught her wrist and tugged and she'd followed, laughing and trying not to trip over her pink chenille dress.

He falls silent.

"What changed?" Justin prompts.

"What do you think?" Jack snaps. He looks back down at the photograph. He doesn't want to talk about any of this, but the words spill out just the same. "We had plans. I was going out-of-state to school, and she was gonna take-over her mother's shop. She had a real head for business." He's not smiling any more. These memories are bitter now.

"She got pregnant near the end of summer … or she found-out then, how should I know? I tried to tell her to get the damned thing aborted, but she wouldn't." He huffs and shakes his head. "She told me that she'd take care of it herself, that I should go. What a bitch. That was her way of guilt-tripping me. So I fucking stayed and married her. Still trying every damned thing I could think of to make her change her mind, but she wouldn't. Stubborn old cow."

He flicks the photograph into the open grave, refuses to watch where it lands.

"That was your choice," Justin says. 

His voice is inflectionless, but Jack hears the emphasis just the same. "Some fucking choice." 

But now that Justin's said it out loud Jack can't fight the thought away. He'd never considered it a choice. There had never really seemed to be one. If there was a baby it belonged to both of them and was their responsibility. If there wasn't a baby, he was free. Leaving her alone with the kid hadn't ever crossed his mind.

He'd blamed her, rightfully, he thought. She should have got rid of the kid, because they had no business having babies at their age. But she'd said 'no' and that was her choice, and he'd stayed and that had been his. 

He could have left her. He could have ended their relationship right there.

"Hey," he says, his hand wrapping around Justin's arm. "What are you playing at, here?"

Justin's gaze flickers down at Jack's hand briefly, then matches Jack's glare. "I don't think this is a game," he says. "Do you?"

Joan doesn't laugh anymore. Certainly never like she had back then, open and loud and careless. She has wrinkles on her face but none of them are laugh lines, and that was the one thing he'd teased her most about when they were young.

There's a gnawing heaviness in his gut, unnatural and all-consuming. Like a gaping, flopping fish is sitting in the pit of his stomach, gasping, desperate for space to breathe, sucking down every emotion in lieu of oxygen, until Jack's left empty. And like a fool, he just stands there and stares.

_____________________________________________________

Slowly, the sun creeps into the sky. The world comes awake in increments. Birds start to chirp, and Jack's able to blink out of his daze and realize that there's no sign of Justin anywhere.

He doesn't expect the sudden flash of vulnerability upon finding himself alone in the graveyard, standing by that open grave. It's only a few hours but suddenly it doesn't seem right for that kid not to be there.

Turning, Jack walks through the rows of markers and tries not to look at them. He distracts himself searching for that already-familiar blond head. The quest is futile but he refuses to abandon it. The morning's cool, the wind tinged with the bitter sting of winter, the air smells sweet and heavy with autumn decay. Jack's tired of being surrounded by death. He's had enough of that for one morning.

The pedestrian gate swings closed behind him with a creak and a clatter but he doesn't look back. He points himself in the direction of home, relieved to be ensconced once again in the noise and bustle of the street. 

No sign of Justin, and Jack tells himself that he's thankful. That he's as tired of riddles as he is of death. Mostly, though, Jack finds himself thinking about the memory of Joan's laugh, of her smile. When he tries once more to morosely picture himself being lowered into the ground he imagines looking up and seeing her standing there, twenty years younger with her head tipped back, carefree once more. 

The images make him stumble. Probably he shouldn't have had those glasses of whiskey so early in the morning. On an empty stomach, no less. That's why he's feeling like he is.

Passing the corner variety store, Jack turns down his residential street and realizes Justin's fallen into step with him. Jack wants tell him to 'fuck off', but what comes out is, "What am I supposed to do?"

And, because Jack's life is just cursed like that, Justin says, "I can't tell you what to do."

If Jack wanted this kind of useless insight he would've gone to a therapist but then again, he'd have to pay for this shit. Justin says, "Maybe your wife had the right idea."

Jack just stops walking. Just comes to a sudden and immediate halt because, well, seriously? "What?"

Justin carries on three steps before he stops too; turning around with his hands stuck in the pockets of his black P-coat. "When she said you should start by telling your kids."


	3. Chapter 3

Joan's standing in the front door when Jack walks up the driveway. "Where have you been?" she demands as he hesitates at the bottom step. Her hand's resting on her chest, overtop of her heart, her fingertips brushing the gold crucifix she's been wearing around her neck since she was sixteen. Her other hand's holding the door open. 

Up to that point Jack was thinking about mustering a smile for her, possibly giving her a kiss on the cheek or something. That glower though, that glower can freeze a man solid at twenty paces. "I went for a walk."

It occurs to him that Justin's probably standing right there, judging him or some shit, and Jack wants to turn around and say, "Well, let's see you do better. This woman is batshit!" but as he opens his mouth to introduce the kid Joan throws her hands in the air, the gesture stiff and reeking of frustrated anger, then she turns around and disappears into the house.

When Jack looks behind him Justin isn't even standing there. There's no sign of kid anywhere on the street, which just pisses Jack off. It's not fair that Justin comes and goes as he pleases, leaving Jack where he is to cope on his own. He's pretty sure there's a word or two in the Good Book that suggests this whole thing's supposed to be developing a little different.

Actually, now that he thinks about it he's pretty sure he's never heard of anything this insane happening anywhere, let alone in the Bible. Old Testament or New. Abraham got ordered to kill his son but that was about as crazy as shit got, right? It's not as if the messenger from God stayed around to show Abraham a thing or two about living life with faith.

"Well?" Joan calls, her voice drifting out through the open door of the house. "Come inside."

He climbs the stairs and finds his way to the kitchen, not because Joan's there but because he hasn't eaten anything yet, and he's hungry and also maybe a little tipsy. 

"I made you breakfast," she says without turning to look at him. She's fiddling with a dishcloth over by the sink. 

There's a plate of scrambled eggs and toast, framed by a knife and fork, a glass of orange juice and a white paper napkin. Jack stares. "What the hell happened to the eggs?"

She half-turns, just enough for him to see her expression: bland and empty. "Egg whites only," she says. "To keep your cholesterol down."

"What cholesterol?" he says. "It's not my cholesterol that's the problem!" He picks up the shriveled piece of toast that's on his plate. "What's this? Brown toast?"

"It's better for you." She returns to her busywork on the opposite side of the kitchen. 

She's fucking puttering. Jack _hates_ that.

"Better for me?" he shouts, tossing the toast back onto his plate. "I'm already _dying_! Who gives a crap what's 'better for me'!"

She doesn't raise her voice or look flustered or frustrated, she could be a stone statue in somebody's garden for all the expression she shows. Jack wishes she'd shout or frown or wince. The most he's gotten out of her lately have been a few tears when the Doc told him the prognosis, and then nothing.

"Maybe if you had worried about your health a little more you wouldn't _be_ dying," she says, coolly. Then she smoothes the front of her dress and walks, calm as you please, out of the kitchen.

"I guess we'll never know!" he shouts after her. "At least now that it's too little too late you can let me have some dignity at breakfast and eat like a normal human being! _Christ_!"

Jack sits and listens for a moment but he can't even hear her moving around. Eventually, he gives-in and eats his breakfast because at least it's warm. He'll have something good for lunch though. Greasy and life threatening, and he'll wash it down with a beer.

Shoving his dishes in the sink, he straightens the cross on the wall out of habit and heads down the hall. He means to go right back out the front door but Joan's sitting in the living room. Just sitting there staring straight ahead at nothing, and sipping a glass of something dark.

He thinks, "Jesus, Joanie."

He says, "I'm going out. I'll be back late."

The Joan he married wouldn't have sat alone in a room staring at nothing while her husband was dying. She would have done something, said something, at least. She would have been there for him. Jack can't place when exactly it was that they started drifting apart; it's likely that they were doomed from the start. From the moment of conception.

Literally.

She doesn't call out to ask where he's going and he doesn't tell her. He doesn't bother to mention when he'll be back either, or if she should make something for him for dinner. Instead, he snatches up his coat and his keys and marches out to the garage.

Jack's half-expecting Justin to be sitting in the car, but he isn't. The kid doesn't appear in the back seat as Jack drives, and he's not standing on the curb when Jack pulls in to his destination. Jack spends most of his journey considering whether or not to pull over if Justin suddenly appears on the side of the road, or if he should just drive passed.

A part of him still wants to pretend: he's not dying; everything his mother told him as kid isn't true…

_Ever this day be at my side, to light and guard, to rule and guide…_

Instead, here he is. Looking over his shoulder, paranoid in a way he hadn't been yesterday. His life invaded by some blond _kid_ who glows and swears and shows no fear, and probably doesn't know a single goddamned thing about guiding or guarding.

Climbing the front steps of his daughter's house Jack wonders if the boys will be in. It's Monday morning probably they're at school. It's been some time since he's seen them.

If they'd been living in his house those kids would have gotten a good whollopping twice over by now. No manners and no goddamned common sense. John in particular needs a firm hand and a few solid smacks upside the head. Still, they weren't his kids, they were his _grandkids_ , and so Jack finds them hilarious. Maybe he even encourages them sometimes.

Lord knows where he went wrong with Claire. Then again, her being a girl and all, it's more likely that Joan was the one who messed her up. Jack doesn't know much about girls but he'd given his daughter everything and in return she'd gone and screwed herself up.

Her divorce isn't surprising to him. He's been expecting it since about the time he caught sight of her fiancé. Shotgun wedding, Jack remembers thinking. The diagnosis and the cure. "History loves to repeat itself," he thinks.

True, Jack feels a bit conflicted when it comes to Claire's husband. On the one hand, the man had the guts to call a spade a spade and put an end to a marriage that was making everyone miserable. Jack can respect that; maybe he even admires that a little.

But the man walked out on his own family, on his responsibilities, and that was something Jack can't abide. The man's a selfish coward, and now Claire's a mess and here Jack is, trying to have a serious talk with her that's already doomed to be a righteous mess.

"Daddy!" she says, pulling open the front door.

Jesus, the woman looks like hell. He wants to tell her to go upstairs and put some damned makeup on, fix her hair, at least, but he doesn't. She holds out her arms and squeezes him close against her god-awful cotton sweatshirt. 

Jack pats her back twice. "Hey, kid."

She makes her way into the kitchen and starts brewing tea. Jack doesn't know what he ever did to give his daughter the impression that he likes tea, but there you go. "The boys are at school," she says, taking down two cups from the cupboard.

There are dirty dishes piled on the counter, the dishwasher's whirring quietly. Jack's eyes skim over the wood grain of the kitchen table, then around the whole of the room. No sign of religion in this kitchen, Jack can approve of that, at least.

Claire sets a mug down in front of him, a teabag sitting in water that's growing murky. She fills a pitcher with milk and puts out the sugar bowl before settling into the chair across from him with her own mug, smiling as she takes a sip.

"Daddy, you're not drinking your tea."

"Not thirsty." It smells weird, like rancid berries or something. "Don't worry about it."

"I can make coffee." She's already rising from out of her chair and heading to the counter.

Jack doesn't particularly want coffee, either. If she could make it Irish he wouldn't reject that. Claire doesn't seem to keep any liquor in her house, though. Sometimes that makes him wonder if she's actually his daughter at all.

He watches as she takes down two new mugs and the coffee grinds and fills up the brewer with water. This is, quite possibly, the most awkward moment of his entire life. How the hell is he supposed to say this? More importantly, how long does he have to stay after he tells her, because he can already tell he's going to need a stiff drink pretty soon.

"Your mother," he starts, then clears his throat. Joan hasn't done anything interesting this week, let alone in the past year. She's barely spoken two words to him that aren't some kind of command. Jack thinks that Joan keeps in touch with Claire, but if she does she doesn't share the news. He clears his throat. "She's doing good."

Claire turns around and smiles again. "I'm glad." 

"I can't stay long," he says, but the more time he spends in that kitchen, watching his daughter moving around with her hair looking the way it does, no makeup on her face, wearing some bulky, shapeless sweater and blue jeans that have no shape and, Jack suspects, an actual elastic band in the back, the more he wants to throw something. 

He's given up everything to give her a chance at life and she's spent the better part of her existence bitching and moaning. Ungrateful.

She fills the mugs with coffee and brings both of them over to the table but when she starts to sit down her eyes skim over the milk and sugar and she murmurs, "Cream," and starts to rise again.

Jack catches her wrist. "I've got cancer, kid." 

"Daddy!" she gasps, collapsing back into her chair like a puppet with its strings cut. "Oh god." She slumps forward on the table, her head dropping onto her arms; crying.

Awkwardly, Jack pats her back. "Tears aren't going to cure me, kid."

"Does mom know?"

Jack scoffs. "Of course she does."

"Well," she says, sitting up a little more. "Can't they fix you?"

He thinks he already answered that question for her somewhere. "Nothing to be fixed," he tells her, anyway. "Damage is already done."

She sobs, holds her hand up to her mouth like she wants to stifle the sound. Jack wishes she would. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"It's a tough break, kid. It happens sometimes." She gets up and drapes her arms over him and cries onto his shoulder and Jack pats her back and wonders where the hell Justin is. Isn't he supposed to be protecting Jack from shit like this?

_____________________________________________________

There are times when Justin feels impossibly thankful that he can no longer be overwhelmed by emotion. A lot of times, actually.

He can remember the ease with which he once ricocheted from absolute sadness to unreserved joy in a matter of moments. He'd felt everything once, with his total being. 

Now, he no longer questions whether that had been 'right' or 'smart'. He's learned to trust himself, to forgive himself but most importantly, because of what he's become, he's learned to have faith that there's meaning in everything, even the most unjust and seemingly random of occurrences.

Justin's fairly certain he never had that kind of faith when he was human.

It's easier when you can't really feel the results of all that injustice. He can be unbiased when he wants to be. Of course, there's still all those memories he has, which really isn't the norm. It's hard to say how it works. Maybe it just takes more time for the memories to drift away or maybe there's some sort of selection process. Either way, Justin isn't the only one who remembers what he used to be, and the end result is empathy. Empathy laced with a kind of impatience that's pretty unusual among his kind. Privately, Justin considers himself and the others like him to be ass-kickers.

They get sent out to deal with the hard cases, probably because they're not inclined to put up with shit.

Jack Kinney dishes out a lot of shit.

Lately, Justin spends his time in a constant state of frustration. The people he deals with are, more often than not, selfish, irritable, and set in their ways. He chips and chips and chips away at their walls and sometimes he makes it through in time, and sometimes he doesn't, but there's always someone else out there waiting for him.

It would be thankless, except Justin knows he's doing the 'right thing'. Knows he's doing a worthy thing, and it feels good. In the end, anyway. Feels like he's making a difference, maybe.

The door of the little two-story house opens and Justin watches Jack hurrying down the front steps, pulling his car keys from his pocket as he moves. In the doorway, Claire Kinney's standing, sobbing, bracing herself on the green door, unable to move.

Justin shakes his head. "You're a fickle old fart, Jack Kinney." He watches as the man climbs into his car and starts the engine, disappearing down the street without even a backward glance to the house, where his daughter's still standing. "What a mess."

_____________________________________________________

Justin's already sitting at the bar when Jack walks in. The man makes it all the way across the room, is already sliding onto a barstool right beside him before he even notices. "Jesus Christ!"

Smirking, Justin says, "We’ve been through this." He likes the way it makes Jack scowl. Justin suspects this man isn't used to being teased.

Jack motions for a drink, folding his arms on the countertop, stubbornly avoiding Justin's gaze. Fine. He can be like that if he wants to. 

Pursing his lips, Justin asks, "You have a son, don't you?"

"I thought you were supposed to know everything?" 

"Not _everything_." Justin's been called a 'little shit' before and, personally, he considers that to be one of his virtues. Being a shit when occasion calls for it, that is.

He'd purposely waited; assuming Jack would need some time to resettle himself after his earlier conversation with his daughter. Apparently, Justin had underestimated how much time the man would need; or overestimated. Jack's clearly worked himself up into some kind of snit. Nothing left but to role with the punches and hope that those punches don't become literal.

"My daughter," Jack continues, ignoring Justin entirely. "What a bitch." There's regret and resentment in that tone, not quite blame-shifting and self-pity but-- "I don't know what Joan did to that girl."

Right on cue.

Justin raises his eyebrows. "Joan."

Finally, Jack looks at him. "I don't know the first thing about girls. It sure as shit wasn't me who turned her into that." 

The bartender slides a beer in front of Justin with a wink, not so much flirtatious and sympathetic 'hang in there'. It makes Justin smiles as he sips his beer. When he looks over Jack's glowering. "She balled her eyes out like it was going to be her in the coffin," Jack says.

Justin swallows a mouthful of beer reflexively. "Wait. Are you pissed at me because I gave you some privacy to talk to your own daughter?"

"She was crying!"

"No kidding. I'm sure she was surprised by the news. It is a little sudden."

Jack snorts. "It's not sudden."

"It is for her. You never told her about the cancer when it was just in your lungs."

"It was nobody's goddamned business," Jack defends. He knocks back his glass and motions for a refill. "Fine," he mutters, shifting around to face Justin more fully. "Point the finger of blame at me, sonnyboy. everybody always does. But I'll tell you what. You're just like them. Just like every other person on this godforsaken spit of earth."

Grinning, Justin raises his beer in a toast. "Except I'm really not."

"You can toss blame around however much you want. Go ahead and keep deluding yourself." Leaning forward, he drops his voice low, notes with guilty pleasure that Jack actually looks a little bit freaked out. "I dare you."

"This isn't how you're supposed to be doing things."

"Are you sure? Do you know a lot about it? Read the Bible cover-to-cover? Church every Sunday and prayers before bed?" Justin can hear Jack's idle thought: "I used to" as it drifts through the man's head. It only serves to make him more frustrated. "Are you an authority on how things work up there, Mr. Kinney?"

It's hit home and Jack fumbles for his glass and knocks it back. The whole thing, one mouthful. Justin shakes his head, scoffs. "God's always the first one to fuck you over, did I get that right, Jack?"

"I'm leaving," Jack snarls. "You can pay the tab, sonnyboy."

"With my vast quantities of wealth."

Jack gets right up into his face. His breath reeks of bourbon. "Have faith."

He turns and starts walking like he's determined to have the last word, and maybe that's why. That, or Justin's just sick of the pity parade. He spins his stool around. "What did our pride avail us?" he quotes. "What have wealth and its boastfulness afforded us?"

"Fuck off."

"Are you going to tell you son?" Justin calls.

"Not on your life!"

"What about on yours?" Justin says but he's talking to himself. With a sigh, he spins back to the bar and reaches for his beer.

"Was that your father?" the bartender asks, sidling over.

Justin wrinkles his nose in distaste. "Thankfully, no." He finishes off his beer, and then reaches into his pocket. The other man waves him off. "You sure?" 

"Yeah, don't worry about it," the guy says, smiling a little. Sympathetic. "On the house."

The gesture takes away the irritation and anger. In a moment, Justin's smiling again, honest and open. He says, "Thank-you," and means it for more than the free drinks.

_____________________________________________________

Just about all Jack can think about is getting inside his house, getting up to his room, taking his damned pills and going to sleep. He's had too much excitement for one day. Too much bullshit.

The moment he shuts his front door Joan appears in the hallway, her ruler-straight lips pursed. "What did you say to Claire this afternoon?" she asks. "She was a complete mess on the phone."

Draping his jacket over the banister, Jack shrugs. "I told her I'm about to kick the bucket," he says. "That's what you wanted, wasn't it?"

She's fiddling with her crucifix again. Jack wonders if she notices how often she does that. "Must you be so vulgar?" she says, force of habit. Then she draws herself up even straighter, which Jack didn't think was possible. "Well, that explains it." She fixes him with a steady, inscrutable gaze. All at once Jack remembers that he used to think of her as a Valkyrie, it used to be his nickname for her, a term of endearment.

These days, she's 'The Warden'.

"She loves you," Joan says. "We both do. Very much." It sounds halting when she says it. Rehearsed.

Jack braces his hand on the banister. "I'm going upstairs." 

When he gets to his bedroom he kicks the door shut, intending to collapse on top of the blanket but the moment he turns around he sees who standing there, waiting for him. "Stop following me!"

"No." Justin stares at him with such a steady, unflinching gaze that Jack feels like a butterfly pinned down and fluttering, waiting to die. 

"Get out of my house!"

The blond juts his chin up, his eyebrows arching. The picture of defiance. "Keep yelling like that and you'll spend what time you have left in a psychiatric hospital," he says. "You're wife's downstairs."

That makes Jack pause because it's something that honestly hasn't occurred to him before. "You're standing right there."

"Yeah," Justin says, nodding. "But if you keep acting like a stubborn ass I guarantee I'll drift into the shadows and she can stand there and watch you raving at your dirty clothes hamper."

They glare at each other and for one crazy second Jack's determined to make Justin blink first, like the entire fate of the world rests in Jack proving his point right here.

Then, as if Jack's thoughts are perfectly plain to the other man, Justin snorts. "God," he says, and the word slides out of the kid's mouth in a whoosh. He laughs, one sharp bark of sound, more exasperated than joyous, laced with a curious kind of disbelief. "What's it like, living without responsibility, Jack?"

The question startles him. "What are you talking about? I've got so much god damned responsibility, I'm drowning in it."

The corner of the kid's mouth curls upward. "You should listen to yourself talk sometime. Preferably before any revelations you end up having are too little too late." He meets Jack's eyes again and the gaze is penetrating, searing and judging and Jack can't hold it, he has to look away. 

When he looks back Justin's gone. 

The bedroom door creaks open a minute later, when Jack's still standing there blinking at nothing. "If you want dinner there's a plate in the fridge you can heat up," Joan tells him as she walks straight to the ensuite. The door closing behind her feels absolute.

Dazed, Jack peels off his clothes and then climbs into bed. The burger he grabbed for lunch wasn't enough, but he doesn't want to go downstairs. Doesn't want to sit in that kitchen, doesn't want to be awake and thinking any more. He's done. 

He switches off the lamp on his side of the bed and closes his eyes, loses track of time. He's still awake when the ensuite door opens again, Joan emerging stowing her clothes in the dresser and then walking over to her side of the bed. The blankets move and rustle as she climbs in, and again as she pulls the blankets over her body.

There's a definitive click as her bedside lamp switches off. She doesn't say anything to him.

Across the room the bedroom window rattles in the fall wind, the draft cool on Jack's skin.

_____________________________________________________

Jack dreams and wakes and dreams. 

These days it's easy enough to fall asleep but once his eyes close he's at the mercy of his memories.

The doctor told him he was dying and Joan hiccupped and held a handkerchief up to her mouth as her eyes watered but unlike her daughter, Joan hadn't let those tears fall. She sat there in that doctor's office with her handkerchief covering her mouth, until finally she'd nodded, dabbed her eyes and said, "Excuse me. I apologize," to no one in particular.

She'd patted Jack's arm, 'there, there'.

It was the most affectionate gesture she'd offered him in over five years. Maybe more. Jack's memory's unreliable these days at best.

Every time he closes his eyes and falls back into sleep there's another memory there, waiting. Every time he blinks awake, moonlight in his eyes, he sees Justin sitting on the window ledge, his feet braced, head turned away, looking outside. 

It makes Jack wonder if Justin can feel the cold air from the draft. Probably not. The kid doesn't look bothered at all. He doesn't look uncomfortable.

Jack lies in bed and stares and Justin turns and looks at him, and then Jack falls asleep and it all begins again. The cycle. The whole damned merry-go-round. 

Jack's never felt so exhausted in his life.

_____________________________________________________

Brian Kinney's cut himself off from his family. 

In so far as it's possible to cut yourself off from a bunch of people who feel they're entitled to your time and attention, and live in the same city that you do. 

Ever the pragmatist, Brian had realized early on that the trick to avoiding unexpected visits and awkward phone conversations lay in figuring out the bare minimum of what was required of him, and fulfilling that as quickly as possible so he could get on with his life.

The bare minimum where Brian's dad is concerned is a quarterly visit. Jack Kinney's blessedly unsentimental, and Brian's even able to avoid any phone calls to make arrangements by dropping-by the one place he knows he can always find his dad.

The International Guild of Electricians, Local Branch, 467; a dingy, demoralizing and smoke-filled pit, home of bad music, sports TV, cheap alcohol and balding old men. 

Let there be light.

No matter how Brian tries to dress-down for these occasions he's always aware of just how much he stands out. For one thing, he's about twice as tall as the tallest guy in the place, and half the width. 

"Sonnyboy!" Jack calls as Brian cuts his way over to the table where his dad is playing cards. "Geez, look at you, all fancy." His dad eyes him up and down, judging. Brian only just manages not to roll his eyes. He's in jeans, a T-shirt, and a leather jacket, but if he'd worn a suit his dad would be bitching about now. It's a fine line that he walks instinctively here: openly successful and competent enough that his dad can preen in front of the other guys, but not so much so that Jack feels compelled to take him down a peg, accuse Brian of 'rubbing the old man's nose in his success'.

"I'm out." Jack tosses his cards down onto the table. "I was bluffing anyway." He ushers Brian over to the bar like this isn't a ritual they've done a thousand times before, first Wednesday of every month. "God, you look good."

Brian hears the wistfulness in his dad's tone, knows the comment has less to do with him than with his dad's own nostalgia 'remember when'. "Thanks," he says, just for something to say.

"Get us some Jack, Bill," Jack says to the bartender, and when the man moves away from them Jack says, "Listen, sonnyboy…" 

Brian's already slipping the envelop out of his jacket pocket as his dad continues, "I'm a bit short this month…" 

Jack stumbles to a halt when he notices what Brian's sliding across the countertop. "You're a good boy." He counts the money, flipping through the stack of bills. "I'm keeping strict accounts."

By this point, the money Jack owes has exceeded the amount that he might ever conceivably manage to repay. It's a moot point, considering Brian's got no intention of touching his dad's money anyway. 

Everything he is right now he did for himself, by himself. Hard work and scholarships and single-minded determination, and a skin thick enough to endure his dad's cutting remarks about 'thinking he's better than everyone else'. 'Being an electrician not good enough for you, sonnyboy?'

"Don't work too hard," Jack says, nudges his arm against Brian's and continues, "Hey. Don't let the ladies tie you down, either. That's what they all want."

Brian watches as his dad takes a long sip of Jack Daniels. "I wouldn't worry about that, pop."

His dad isn't listening. "They'll tell you different, but that's what they all want." He stares at the bottom of his glass, watching the amber liquid as it sloshes in a slow whirlpool. "Men like us. We're not meant to settle down."

When his dad says 'men like us' it sounds like an elite club, that that someone might actually want to be a part of. It used to be something Brian wanted, desperately. He knows better now. 

A solid part of his own dysfunction was lovingly cultivated by the man sitting directly to his left, and whether or not he owns it now, the seeds were sown way back before Brian was even talking. He doesn't know who was responsible for making Jack what he is. Brian's met his paternal grandparents exactly once and they'd seemed fine. No one knows better than Brian that appearances can be misleading, but still.

Jack finishes off his drink and slams the glass onto the table, motioning for another. "Never should have been a family man."

'Thanks, dad' Brian thinks. He says nothing. It's the same old shit. Nothing he hasn't heard before, because his dad has a tendency to get into these kinds of moods. 

What's ridiculous is how Brian still catches himself sometimes. Still waiting for some sign that he meant something to his dad besides another weight slung over his back, and somehow no matter how many time's he disappointed Brian still feels it. Still feels disappointed. He feels a little bit more foolish every time, too. Every time he realizes he's still waiting for his pop to say he's worth something. 

Waiting is hoping. There's no point hoping for something that's never going to happen.

"Jack." A kid appears on his dad's opposite side and if Brian had thought he stuck out like a sore thumb in this place, well…

This guy's young. Shiny and new. Literally fucking shiny, because the more Brian looks at him the more the guy seems to be actually glowing. There's a hazy light around him that isn't owing to the light color of his hair, or the whiteness of his teeth.

He's hot. Brian takes that in, too. Despite the fact that he's never been wrong when it comes to guessing someone's sexuality, however deeply repressed, Brian can't get a hit off this guy. He has no idea if the blond's straight or gay or something else entirely.

"There you are!" Jack greets, waving his drink and smiling, which is just confusing. Who the hell is this guy?

The guy frowns, full disapproval and reprobation. "I think you've had enough." 

"Excuse me," Brian says, sticking his tongue in his cheek. "Who the fuck are you?"

The blond has full lips and strikingly blue eyes, which pin Brian in place. He feels a frisson of something zing through him.

"Sonnyboy," Jack butts in, breaking the moment as he drops his arm around the blond's shoulders. "This is Justin. You're never gonna believe…"

Justin shrugs Jack away. "Jack!" When he turns to Brian, the blond offers a superficial little smile that practically spells out the word 'bullshit' plain as day. "Your dad's teaching me about the business. In his spare time."

Brian laughs. "So you're an electrician."

Jerking his chin up, pure defiance, Justin says, "Sure." He offers his hand to shake and Brian clasps it. That zinging frisson of energy sweeps into him again this time stronger. It sears through his fingers, up his arm and neck and down his back. It whites his vision out, numbing everything else, narrowing the world down, smaller and smaller until it's just this: Justin and the space in between them. Smaller still: Justin's face, soft and open, his lips full and pink, his eyes impossibly deep and dark and blue.

Then Justin releases Brian's hand and the moment's over.

"Never should have been a family man," Jack's muttering to himself as the bartender refills his glass.

Off-balance, Brian can't quite manage to push away the question that always finds its way front and center whenever Jack says shit like that. "Then why did you?"

"You mean you never guessed?" Jack's wonders, bitter. Mocking. "Come on, sonnyboy."

There's a split second where he feels nothing, and the nausea rolls through him. Brian drops his bottle back to the bar, fingers numb. 

"I think we should go," Justin murmurs, gripping Jack's shoulder. 

Brian can't agree more. He turns on his heel but his dad grabs hold of the arm of his jacket. "Wait, wait," he says. "Come on. Stay. Have a drink with your old man."

"Jack," Justin says, a little louder, stronger.

An ugly, angry expression that Brian remembers only too well flickers over his dad's face as he turns. "I should fucking call you the Gate Keeper!" he snarls at Justin. "Between you and the Warden, there's no door I'm gonna pass through alive!"

"Not at this rate," the blond snaps. Then he sighs, relents. "At least you should…"

But Jack cuts him off. "Fuck off. I'm having a drink with my sonnyboy."

Brian doesn't know when it was exactly that he settled back onto his barstool but that's where he finds himself. Back in that same old spot, unable to move and incapable of meeting Justin's blue eyes as they sweep over his face 'are you sure?'. 

"Fine!" Justin says, exasperated. His tone makes it clear he's throwing his hands up in surrender. "Whatever." Then he turns on his heel and walks out, taking the light with him.

_____________________________________________________

Brian stays with his dad until just before midnight. Justin knows this because he sits outside, balanced on the back of a park bench, glowering at whole damned world like that'll change anything. He's had just about all he can take of Jack Kinney, so he follows Brian home instead.

The man climbs into a cab, which Justin thinks is gratifyingly responsible, and then figures that, given the state the guy's in, the bartender probably called the cab for him. 

Brian spends the trip with his forehead pressed to the icy cold of the glass window. 

Justin spends the trip sitting there watching. It's not creepy because what else is invisibility good for? It's practically part of Justin's job description.

Brian's crying, and Justin thinks about reaching out, bridging the distance between them and trying to ease some of the palpable misery, but he doesn't. It's not his place. Brian's probably got his own guardian angel looking out for him. This is really none of Justin's business.

The crucial insight here, he thinks, following Brian out of the cab and up the steps, is that he has no idea how to fit these broken pieces back together. Not for Jack, not for Claire or Brian, and not for Joan. If Jack doesn't want it there's not much Justin can do to help. It's not like he can force the man to see. To understand. 

Free will. What genius thought that one up? Oh, right.

He watches Brian collapse into his friend's waiting arms, listens to their whispers. He sits there as Brian's fingers wrap tightly into his pillow, as he winces his eyes closed and lets the tears eke out, slipping across the bridge of his nose until, finally, his breathing evens out and he falls asleep.

As if the man isn't enough of a self-involved mess just on his own, how the hell is Justin supposed to get Jack Kinney to accept his gay son? It's impossible!

Flashing a pointed look toward the ceiling, Justin whispers, "A little help would be really appreciated about now." He sighs. "I mean what, exactly, do you expect me to do here?"

There's no answer. Of course. He wasn't expecting one.

The truth is this: Brian's the most likely member of the Kinney family to let his father back in, to accept the man if Jack just tries, if he just makes any sort of effort at all.

Crouching down by the side of the bed, Justin ghosts his fingertips just above Brian's damp cheek, not touching. "He never changes, does he?" he asks, his breath barely stirring Brian's hair. "You and I have a lot in common."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Justin quotes The Book of Wisdom 5:8


	4. Chapter 4

Brian is used to being the center of attention. Even in a crowded room eyes track and follow him, regardless of what he's doing. That's how it should be. It's how he wants it. He is not, however, used to feeling as if he is being watched when he is sitting in his office with the door closed. Or when he is _alone_ in his loft, or driving home from work, _alone_ , in his Jeep.

It's not always, but it _is_ often. A brief prickling of the hairs on the back of his neck as he reaches into the fridge for his guava juice that makes him pause. A whisper of air, soft and barely noticeable, warm like a summer breeze tickling on the bared skin of his arms as he rests his hands on his desk, glaring down at an ad campaign that just _isn't right_. 

Sometimes it's fleeting, other times the sensation lingers. Brian doesn't know what it means but he suspects it's an early indicator of encroaching madness. Mostly he just doesn't think about it. He stashes the phenomenon in the same category as déjà vu, tarot cards and jinxes.  Same meaningless bullshit.

_____________________________________________________

  
It's not stalking. Here's why:   
  
since Jack Kinney met with his son at that smoky, depressing bar, Justin has spent a week, a _week_ , trying to get through to the man. No luck.    
  
More than no luck. Jack has started actively giving Justin shit. More so than before.   
  
He's digging in his heels and bitching, and more often than not, he's too drunk for Justin to even try and reason with. Justin throws his hands up and goes for the big guns, "So you want to go to hell? That's what you want?"   


"I guess that's exactly what I want." Jack downs another fifth of bourbon. 

He still hasn't told his son about the cancer; hasn't bothered to take any of his daughter's phone calls; has managed to be out of the house whenever his grand kids drop by, and completes the whole mess by haranguing, yelling and insulting his own wife, in between bouts of demanding sympathy.

"How do you expect any of these people to mourn you when you're acting like a selfish sonofabitch?" Justin shouts.

"Nobody's gonna mourn me either way, sonnyboy!"

"I'm not your fucking sonnyboy!" 

It's not stalking, because Justin's working. He's trying to find some way to save this asshole's soul, since apparently the man is too full of self-pity and self-loathing to save it himself. Claire's too much of a wreck and she grates on the old-man's nerves anyway; Lord knows Joan is sick and tired of giving and giving and getting nothing in return, so there's really only one other option. Justin refuses to go anywhere near Jack Kinney's grand kids.

The thing is, Brian Kinney is a strangely soothing presence and Justin is able to sit down and _think_ and not feel like absolute crap over this whole mess as he does it. The fact that so far none of the strategies he comes up with in the man's presence seem to work when Justin attempts to implement them is beside the point.  He knew going in that Jack Kinney wasn't just going to relinquish his ways and become a saint over night. Actually, the _most_ Justin is hoping for is a single honest tear of regret. Some acknowledgement of wrongdoing would be enough. If he can pull a genuine 'I'm sorry' out of the man then Justin will consider that an indisputable, honest-to-god, gold-star victory that will put him in the history books.

Justin's respectful, though. He doesn’t go flipping through Brian's thoughts, or tunneling into his memories, even if he could argue that doing either of those things might be useful. He has to find _some_ way to reach Jack, after all.  There's just something about Brian that makes Justin reluctant to ask the man to give any more.

As respectful as he tries to be about the man's privacy, Justin ends up spending an increasing amount of time shadowing Brian around town, so he can't really help learning a thing or two.  Some of those things make him blush, like when he pops into the loft preparing to settle in for some serious contemplation and finds Brian standing there completely naked with some guy on his knees sucking Brian's dick. 

Some of the things make Justin nervous, like when he strolls into Brian's office and the man curses under his breath, runs his hands over his face and through his hair and says, "Go the fuck away, I'm trying to concentrate!" and Justin looks around to find who Brian might be talking to, finds no one, and then just stands there for a solid minute gaping and blinking and worrying that his powers are fading or something, because he's pretty certain he's solidly invisible to any human eye.

Other things, though, make him ache with hope, l ike Jack Kinney's _other_ grandchild, Gus Kinney.

"You and I," Justin says, leaning down over the little boy's crib. "We might be able to fix some of this mess." He strokes a careful finger along Gus' cheek, smiling as the little boy leans into the touch. "Would you do that? For your daddy?" Gus shakes his rattle in support.  "I won't let _anything_ hurt you," Justin vows. "Not _ever._ "

_____________________________________________________

  
When fresh meat walks through the door the occupants of the Liberty Diner always titter and whisper. It's the chaotic pitch of these whispers that cause Brian to look up from his coffee. They sound confused.   
  
Looking over to the door, he can't blame them.   
  
He recognizes Justin immediately because Brian has always been good with names and faces. There's a special place in his memory for Justin, though, because of the weird magnetism between them when they had shaken hands, and because Brian _still_ can't figure out if the guy's straight or gay.   


Apparently, none of the occupants of the Diner can.

"Hey," Justin says, walking right over to the booth where Brian's sitting as if they're old friends. Out of the corner of his eye, Brian notes Debbie's eyes rolling.

"Who the fuck are you?" Brian raises his mug up to his lips and tries to look bored and a little menacing.

Justin shifts his stance, like he knew this was going to be awkward but hadn't anticipated just how much. "We met a couple of days ago…"

Brian swallows a mouthful of coffee, and then decides to put the kid out of his misery. "Oh right. Julian." Well, sort of.

Justin's eyes scrunch a little as he winces, like he can't decide whether to be offended at the name, or hurt that he was apparently unmemorable. " _Justin,_ " Justin corrects, somewhat forcefully. The 'you should know better' evident in his tone. "Look, can I sit down?"

Brian tips his cup at the bench across from him, watching as the blond slides onto it. Leaning forward, Justin starts to say something but is interrupted by Debbie appearing at the side of their table, smacking her gum loudly, her narrowed gaze scrutinizing the both of them. Closely. The woman just can’t do subtle, no matter how hard she tries. "Can I get you anything, sweetheart?"

"Excuse me?" Justin says, looking up like she's startled him. "Oh, no thanks."

"Such nice manners!" she says, casting a pointed glare Brian's way as she smacks her gum. She turns over a mug and fills it with coffee. "Have some coffee and a slice of cake. You look like you need it."

"Oh." Justin is clearly flustered, but he manages a wide smile. "Thank-you."

"No problem." Debbie smacks her gum again, and then looks pointedly between Brian and his booth-mate, before she reaches forward and pats Justin's cheek. "You're fucking gorgeous, aren't you, Sunshine?" 

"She thinks I'm _gorgeous_ ," Justin whispers, clearly overwhelmed but also a little flattered as Debbie moves away, presumably to go find a slice of cake. Brian would laugh, but he's still trying to be aloof and a second later Justin pulls himself out of his haze, shaking his head.  "I'm sorry."  He's frowns, like he's genuinely lost. "Uh, where was I?"

Eyebrow raised and tongue pressed firmly against the inside of his cheek, Brian says, "How am I supposed to know? You came over to me."

"Right. I just wanted to…"

"Here you are, Sunshine!" Debbie says, dropping a plate with a slice of a cake doused in whipping cream in front of him. "Shit, you're not allergic to lemons, are you?" 

"No. I _love_ them." Justin sunny smile has Debbie beaming right back at him.

"Deb," Brian says, holding out his mug. "Can I get a refill?"

"Sure." She fills the mug without looking at him once.

Of course, because it's the Diner and Brian has that kind of luck, just as she finishes pouring the coffee and actually looks at him long enough to register the 'leave us alone' glare he's flashing her way, Emmett appears as if by magic to take her place. "Who's your friend, Brian? He's _adorable_!" Which actually makes Justin smile even brighter, something Brian had thought was impossible.

Michael does not seem as pleased to see someone sitting at Brian's booth. "What's going on?"  It's cute, because the way Michael says it, it actually sounds like, 'Do you need me to take care of this?' which is laughable. Brian spent the better part of his high school career fending off bullies who wanted to beat Michael up.

"It's fine," Brian says.

"What are we all looking at?" Ted asks, joining the cluster standing at the end of the table. "Ooh! Very nice. Who is this?"

Brian sticks his tongue firmly in his cheek.  "My dad's special friend."  None of these people can take a hint. 

"Your dad's _what_?" Michael almost shouts.

Justin is actually blushing and stuttering a little, and it shouldn't be making Brian want to reach across the table and plant a possessive kiss on the kid's mouth, but it is. Which just makes him irritable. "Everyone, fuck off. We're trying to have a serious conversation!" There's enough bite in his tone that the group immediately disperses, sliding into a booth at the back of the restaurant. Undoubtedly, they're all gossiping about these latest developments.

"They seemed really nice," Justin says, his eyes focused down as he carefully takes a forkful of cake. Brian waits for it, and a second later those blue eyes flicker up to him, and then shyly drop back to the plate. "I'm sorry to intrude on your day like this…" 

"Look, Jasper…"

" _Justin_."

"Whatever. I don't know what it is you're doing with my dad…"

"I'm not his 'special friend'," Justin interrupts hastily. "It's just…it's not like that. _At_ _all_."

Not that Brian thought it was, really. But there's a conflicting surge of emotions rising up in his gut. Attraction the likes of which he hasn't been hit with in a while, frustration because apparently this guy is just immune to the Brian Kinney patented charm, which means he's probably straight and, when that's linked to whatever relationship the blond has to Brian's dad well, that becomes a concern. A very serious concern. "Are you even gay?" Brian snaps. "What are you _doing_ here?"

Wide blue eyes blink at him guilelessly. "Eating cake?" Justin says, like he's actually uncertain. "Trying to talk to you?"

"Yeah, well I’m done talking. Have a nice day." What he means is, 'fuck off'. Brian drops a few crisp bills onto the table and adds, "Enjoy your cake." Then he leaves.

_____________________________________________________

  
First contact did not go as well as Justin had hoped, but he has a theory about that.   
  
It has to do with Brian's sexuality and Jack, because it always comes back to Jack Kinney.   


Justin isn't offended. It occurred to him right about the moment Debbie came over to their table that maybe the Liberty Diner wasn't the best place to approach Brian, not if he wants to actually say what he has to say without being interrupted. Too many people know the man there, and it's too easy to be interrupted. He needs an 'in'; preferably something that will put Brian at ease, make him feel in control. Well, Justin has the perfect solution.

The 'thumpa thumpa' is audible from the street and as he makes his way inside of Babylon the lights and the grinding press of bodies feels like a happy, welcoming memory. He's in a tight dark tank-top and jeans that he knows flatter his ass, and he hasn't felt so much like himself in a long time. It feels exhilarating. For a minute Justin forgets why he's there, losing himself in the crowd, he throws his hands up and dances. Nothing but the music and the heat of a stranger's body as he catches someone's eye and they start to move together. Justin has missed dancing like this.

He dances three songs and then makes his way over to the bar, laughing when he gets carded. "Trust me, I'm older than I look," he says as he pulls out his ID. He imagines himself a hundred thousand years from now in some bar so futuristic it's barely recognizable and him, handing over the same stupid ID, looking exactly the same. The thought makes him depressed.

A hundred thousand years from now he hopes he's not still dealing with stubborn assholes like Jack Kinney. 

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

Justin sips his beer. "I must have gotten lost on my way to meet my 'special friend'." When he turns around, Brian's lips are actually curling upward, like he's trying to stifle a laugh. "How about you?"

"Well," Brian says, in a slow tone, like he's building up to something he hopes will be shocking. "I _was_ getting my dick sucked."

Justin is unimpressed. He takes another sip of beer and tries to appear suitably blasé. "Bad suction, or did he not cover his teeth?"

Brian's tongue presses into his cheek. Justin has noticed that the man seems to do this a fair bit. "I got bored."

"Yeah, I can see how that might happen. Getting a blow job can be incredibly tedious."

The comment succeeds in forcing a laugh past Brian's defenses, but the man recovers quickly. "Are you stalking me?"

Pointedly, Justin skims his eyes over the crowd of people. He smirks, gesturing at a tall, muscular guy grinding on the dance floor with his shirt off. "No, I'm stalking that guy." 

He sets down his beer and starts to walk over to the guy but Brian tugs him back. "Dance with me."

"I suppose," Justin says with a sigh, like he's a little bit disappointed. Like it might just be a favor.

Which results in Brian laughing again as he shakes his head. "You're a little shit, do you know that?"

"So it's been said."

The moment they get out onto the dance floor, Justin starts to rethink his plan. Or, perhaps more accurately, Justin starts to _completely forget_ he even _had_ a plan. The thing is, Brian keeps pulling him forward until they're bodies are completely aligned, no room for anything even air to pass between them. Brian's shirt is unbuttoned, his sweat-damp chest _right there_ and Justin doesn't have much choice but to move along with him, against him; Brian's hands on his hips guiding his movement, like a puppeteer.

Back when he was alive, this probably would have been one of the hottest dances of his entire life, but Justin isn't human anymore. He can’t feel things like a human would. He can sure as hell feel the muggy warmth of Brian's breath as the man leans forward, the whisper of his lips slipping up Justin's neck and along the side of his face. The stiffness of Brian's cock pressing into Justin's thigh like a revelation, Brian's hands moving up Justin's back and down again, cupping his ass and squeezing and pulling him even closer.

It's distracting. Justin is fairly certain he came to Babylon with a purpose. Brian tips Justin's head back, drops wet, open mouth kisses along the skin of his neck and groans when Justin works a hand between them, pushing Brian back a little. "I really did want to talk to you."

Brian says, "Let's get out of here."

Outside Babylon Justin is greeted with a slap of stinging cold wind that makes his whole body shiver. "I'm this way." Brian tilts his head to a black Jeep parked close to the club as he fishes his keys out of his pocket. His eyes narrow as he glances over. "Didn't you bring a jacket?"

Justin shrugs. "No. I don't really feel the cold."

Brian's dark hazel eyes look pointedly down to where Justin has instinctively wrapped his arms around himself. "Right."  When they climb into the Jeep Brian puts the heat on full and Justin reaches out, rests his hands over the vents and sighs. "Better?" Brian asks, smirking.

Realizing what he's doing, Justin snatches his hands back. It shouldn't make a difference. He can't _feel_ cold. It's a passing sensation to him. There are no extremes; no highs or lows. The strongest feeling his kind ever feel is faith, pure and clean.

He's quiet for the entire drive, and when Brian parks the Jeep and guides him into a redbrick building, Justin follows blindly. Once he's inside Brian's home he manages, "This is a nice place," because it's polite, the proper thing to do, but it's half-hearted because Justin feels off-balance. That feeling is not helped when Brian slips his shirt and jacket off, and grabs a bottle of water from the fridge, which he uncaps and   proceeds to upend over his own head. The clear droplets cascade down tan skin, causing the man's nipples to pebble.

"It's uh," Justin says, his eyes shifting around in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid the display. "Big."

Brian guffaws, loud and pleased, and then he's back in Justin's personal space, his hands smoothing down Justin's arms, wandering over his chest and around his back, until they're framing Justin's head, tipping it back.

Then they're kissing. Justin's fingers curl reflexively around Brian's upper arms because it feels like the world is coming apart around him and he needs something to hold on to or he'll be pulled away, lost somewhere beneath a ripping tidal wave. Then it's not just Brian's arms that Justin's holding on to. Suddenly Justin's hands are going everywhere, like they've acquired a mind of their own. His fingers stroke through thick, dark hair as smooth as silk; fingernails skating down Brian's firm chest, fingertips curling into the brown leather belt around Brian's hips.

Justin comes back to himself at the sound of a zipper being undone. "Wait, wait," he says, pulling back.

"What?"

"Something's wrong." He takes a steps back, and then another, putting more distance between him and Brian. The front of Justin's shirt is wet from the water that has transferred off Brian's chest. Justin's lips and neck are damp, too, but there's a different explanation for that. His breath is coming fast and his heart is racing and he's hard.

He's hard. "This can't be…" Justin says. "It's not…" Possible. This is not _possible_. This doesn't just _happen_.

"Take it easy," Brian is saying. The expression on his face makes it plain that he suspects Justin might be having some kind of sexual identity crisis. Justin wants to smack him because that's just about the last thing that would throw Justin off.  When he was alive he had been gay. Out and proud and everything. The _point_ is, Justin _isn't_ _human_ anymore and _none_ of this should be possible.

Not that Justin's any sort of authority on this kind of thing, but he's gotten used to his current state of being, and that state of being certainly hasn't included anything as intense as … well, as intense as whatever it was he and Brian were just doing. Making out, or whatever. "I have to go."

This seems to piss Brian off. "I thought you said you wanted to talk."

"Yeah, that's what I thought I wanted but …" Forming complete sentences is difficult when you have no coherent logical thoughts in your head, Justin realizes. Right now his brain is stuck on a loop: ohmygodohmygodohmygod.  Sometimes, to keep things interesting, whenever Justin makes the mistake of looking at Brian's wet chest, kiss-swollen lips and half-undone pants the loop switches to: holyshitholyshitholyshit.

He has just enough presence of mind to turn on his heel and walk out the front door. Brian's not so drunk that he wouldn't notice someone just blinking right out of his own loft; there one moment and gone the next. Though Justin moves fast enough that he's gone almost as quickly.

  
_____________________________________________________   


  
Jack knows he's gotten away with a lot in life. Maybe he was a little disappointed when Justin threw his hands in the air, shouted a string of profanity worthy of a sailor and then just abruptly vanished in that way the kid had, but it meant that Jack finally has some peace and quiet.   
  
Well, as much peace and quiet as he ever has.   


Three days after Justin disappears and stops pestering him, Jack blinks open his eyes and says, "Shit."

The kid is standing right there at the side of the bed with his hands on his hips. The moment he notices that he has Jack's full attention, the blond throws a pair of pants at Jack's head. "Get out of bed, and get dressed."

Jack hates to follow orders, but he can see he's beat. "What's going on?" he asks, as he finishes fastening his belt around his gut.

Justin raises both eyebrows, his expression wholly unimpressed. "You're going over to your son's place and you're going to tell him that you're dying."

Jack's opening his mouth on an argument but Justin just keeps looking at him like he's a piece of trash being buffeted about by the wind, so Jack closes his mouth. "Can I have some breakfast first?"

Joan isn't anywhere in the house. Jack pours himself a bowl of cereal and eats it hurriedly.  Justin makes a point of standing on the opposite side of the kitchen table, his posture and his expression making his impatience clear. He never once glances to the kitchen clock or checks his watch but Jack figures that the kid is perfectly aware of precisely what time it is.

"Get your coat," Justin orders as Jack drops his bowl in the sink. 

Jack is frog-marched out the front door and into his car. He tries to talk to the kid, tries to find out a little more about him; gives that up after a while and tries seeing if he can make the kid loosen up; then he gives _that_ up and sees if he can just piss the kid off so much his little blond head explodes. "Don't give me any shit," Justin says. Then directs Jack into a parking spot.

"What, this is it?" Jack asks, looking up at the red brick blocky building they're stopped in front of. It looks like some ancient, dilapidated factory. Jack is unimpressed. "This place is a dump. My sonnyboy doesn't live here." The moment the words are out is the moment Jack realizes that he actually has never been to his son's home. He's never seen where his son works, never seen what his son works _on_ , at least, not consciously. 

Jack saw Claire's first apartment. Hell, he'd helped her move into it. Helped her move into her townhouse, too, and the house she moved into after she was married. Hell, he and Joan have dinner over there sometimes. If he lives long enough, he'll probably go and visit her new place, wherever she plans to live after the divorce is finalized, unless she keeps the house.

There's a gust of cold wind and when Jack looks up, Justin has pulled open the driver's side door and his holding it open. "Get out."

Jack locks his car and then slides out of it. Follows Justin across the street when he's ordered to, though he offers a few comments and some token resistance just because he doesn't want the kid to get it into his head that he can just boss Jack around. Except, well, apparently he can.

Justin's right behind him all the way up the stairs, which Jack takes because he doesn't want to be in a confined space with the kid when he's pissed off like he is, and Justin's still standing there and glaring right up until Jack knocks on a worn metal door and it slides open a second later. Then there's no sign of the kid anywhere. "Little shit," Jack mutters.

"Excuse me?" Brain asks.

"Hey, sonnyboy!" Jack says, recovering quite nicely, if he says so himself. He shoves his hands in his pockets and stands there, feeling increasingly awkward as Brian stares at him. "You gonna let your old man inside?"

The reluctance is perfectly evident but Jack doesn't comment on it. He takes advantage of the gap in the door as Brian steps back, and goes in. "Nice place," he says, looking around. It's the sort of place Jack thinks he would have been happy living in. Shiny and new. Clearly the home of a bachelor, no flower-prints or pastel colors. No sign of a woman's touch anywhere. It's satisfying and liberating all at once. He smiles. "Big as a palace."

"What are you doing here?" Brian asks, moving into the kitchen area and fishing something out of his fridge. "You need money?"

"No, I don't need money." Jack watches his son move around, hoping maybe Brian will offer him a drink. Of course, then he gets distracted because he spots an actual, living and breathing _baby_ sitting in a little rocking seat, fiddling with a bright blue rattle.

Jack wanders over to it. "Hey. Cute kid."

"What?" Brian pulls his head out of the fridge, uncapping a bottle of water and taking a sip. "Oh," he says, his eyes tracking where Jack has wandered. "Yeah, he's Lindsay's. You remember her?"

Jack chuckles because, oh yeah, does he ever. "She was a looker." He jingles his keys in front of the baby's face. "Boy or girl?"

"Boy. And it's about time for his nap." Brian picks up the rocker-seat and disappears up the steps to what Jack can only assume is the bedroom.

Jack settles onto a couch and then briefly considers making a beeline for the door and escaping while no one is looking. With his luck though, Justin will be waiting just outside. So then Jack wonders about the likelihood of being able to locate his son's stash of liquor and consume an adequate portion in the time it takes Brian to put that kid to sleep.

Apparently the answer is 'no' because no sooner has he started to stand up, Brian walks back down the steps and over to the kitchen. "That Lindsay," Jack says, resettling onto the couch and rubbing his hands over his pant legs. "She leaves her kid with you?"

Picking up his bottle of water, Brian glances over. His expression is unreadable. "Sometimes."

Jack doesn't know what he did to piss his son off, but this is hardly the welcome he'd expected. "Here, come here for a second. Sit with me."

After a brief hesitation Brian moves, dropping into a chair on angle with the couch, his legs open in a 'V' shape, his feet bare, fiddling with the cap of his water. "What are you doing here?" 

Straight to the point. Well, Jack can certainly roll with that. "I've got cancer." 

That statement just sits there in the room, taking up space. Jack waits, but his son just keeps looking at him, and after a second Jack finds himself continuing, "My genius doctor found it in my lungs last summer during a routine physical. Seems it's everywhere now." He waits to field the same questions Claire had: can't they do anything? How long does he have? Is he in pain? Have the doctors prescribed him anything?

Brian says, "You want a drink?"

"Yeah," Jack says. "Thanks."

He watches as his son takes down an almost empty bottle of Jack from a cupboard and fills two glasses, pitching the empty somewhere behind the counter. Probably the recycling.  "I don't have long, sonnyboy," Jack says into his glass. "A few months."

"Long enough to get your affairs in order." 

Jack huffs. "You have no idea." He finishes off his drink, and when Brian seems disinclined to say anything further, Jack pats down his pockets until he finds where he put his keys. "Well, I should go. Your mother wants me to take her to some church sale this afternoon." Jack isn't actually certain that the church sale Joan had wanted him to take her to _is_ today, but he can't stand to be in this place any longer. Not with his son staring through him and not saying anything. Not with some baby burbling back there somewhere. Not without another good stiff drink.

"Take care," Brian says as Jack hurries down the stairs. Jack waves a hand but he doesn't look back.

_____________________________________________________

  
Well, that could have gone better, Justin thinks as he stands there watching Brian slide his door closed, and then sigh and pinch the bridge of his nose like he can feel a headache coming on.   
  
Justin is beginning to suspect that the Kinney-family is composed of the most bull-headed, stubborn assholes on the planet, and seriously, whose idea was it to send Justin down here by himself without back-up because, just, honestly.   


He couldn't get Brian to tell him about Gus, couldn't manufacture a chance encounter between grandfather, son and grandson, and like an _idiot_ , he had thought the next best thing would be a fluke meeting: "Hey, Sonnyboy, I just dropped in and, wow, who's the little man?" So of course Brian has to go defensive. Justin really should have seen that one coming.

There's too much hurt here, all around. Everyone's got their fair share of it, no one wants to be the bigger person and let the chip on their shoulder go, and that pretty much leaves Justin out on his own, waving his arms around to no effect.

He's done the sneaky, clever-devil routine before, when the occasion called for it. Jack's not the first stubborn sonofabitch that he has dealt with. But he doesn't want to pull any tricks this time. Not on Brian. He's not exactly clear on his motivations for that, but Justin's actually considering a different approach that he is certain is going to get him into trouble down the road. But that's later, and this is now.

Justin needs to get this thing moving before Jack dies and it all becomes a moot point. It's always harder to deal with decades of pain, emotional and physical, when the cause of the biggest chunk of that pain dies before you even realize you have something you want to say to them.  Well, Justin doesn't plan on letting that happen.

This is bigger than Jack. Justin is going to need some help.

Decision made he blinks out of the loft, appearing on the opposite side of the door and knocking. He knows the minute the door slides open and Brian looks out that Brian actually expected it to be Jack, coming back for something. There's a moment's pause where they just blink at each other, and then Brian says, "You came back."

"Hi!" Justin says, brightly. Like a total spazz. "Look, I'm sorry about the other night." That buys him entrance into the loft. Official entrance, as Brian stands aside and lets him walk through the door. Justin finds himself coming to a halt in the exact spot where they'd stood the other day, entangled. Making out. He clears his throat as Brian slides the door closed. "There's something that I should tell you…"

Brian smirks, false brightness on his face. "You just realized you're actually gay."

Justin laughs. "Fuck no, I realized that a _long_ time ago." He licks his lips and looks away.  He's never done this before, never told anyone this before. He's pretty sure there's a rule written down somewhere about this sort of thing, but if there is then Justin's never heard about it, which means that he has a pretty good defense.  He likes his chances.

The hard part is this, right now: Brian standing and looking at him expectantly and Justin having absolutely no idea where to start. "I think it might help you understand what happened the other night…"

"I don't need to understand that," Brian says. "You got spooked and you ran away. It happens."

" _No_ ," Justin says. "That's not it at all." He licks his lips again, and realizes that Brian is really looking at him now. Really, seriously _looking_ at him, as if Justin is a riddle that he's just decided might be worth solving.

It occurs to Justin that this is probably a prime case of horrible timing. Brian has _just_ found out about his dad's cancer. He can pretend all he wants, but Justin knows news like that isn't put aside so easily. It's probably cruel to do this now. "Maybe this was a mistake," he finds himself saying. Words spilling out without his consent, like verbal diarrhea. "I mean, with your dad and all. You probably need some time." His sneakers squeak on the hardwood as he pivots back toward the door. "I'm just gonna go."

"Oh no," Brian says, his arm coming up and catching Justin's elbow, redirecting him back around. "Not again. You're not escaping that easy."

"Brian, please."

Dark brown eyebrows rise up in a smooth motion. "I've been waiting three days for you to spit out whatever it is you think you have to say to me."

Three days. Back in the Diner where Brian had been feeling defensive again and Justin had been eating delicious cake and had accidentally met some of Brian's closest friends. "Well, if it's any consolation, what I intended to say to you has been different each time."

"That's not a consolation." Brian leans forward so his lips are right there, so close to Justin's. "Now spit it out."

"Uh," Justin says. "Maybe you should sit down for this." Brian looks like he's about to argue but Justin reaches out, squeezes the other man's arm and finally stops acting like an awkward virgin talking to his first real crush.  "Trust me," he says, his voice filling with confidence. "You're gonna want to sit down." 


	5. Chapter 5

Brian stares at him, scrutinizing. Justin has no idea what the man sees but whatever it is must be convincing because not a minute later Brian steps back, walks over to his long white couch and drops down onto it.It doesn't really give Justin much choice but to follow and, ruffling a hand through his hair, he does exactly that.

He ends up standing on the square of carpet in front of Brian's couch, feeling like he's by himself on center stage and the show's about to start and he hasn't even seen the script. He doesn't even know the title of the play, or the major theme. "This is complicated," Justin says as he walks back and forth across the rug. "I want you to listen to what I'm saying and keep an open mind, and let me actually finish before you say anything."

Just to be a smartass Brian raises his hand, and when Justin nods, he asks, "Do you want to sit down?"

"No," Justin says, firmly. Then he looks over at the chair, and settles onto it. "Okay." Brian smirks but otherwise stays silent, and Justin sort of wishes he hadn't silenced the man because he doesn't really know where to start. Obviously it would make the most sense to begin at the 'beginning'. Which leaves him trying to figure out which 'beginning', because there are a surprising number of them.

Clasping his hands together, he forces himself to just start _somewhere_. "Look, the other night I wasn't being a chicken shit. I was just surprised because … because that sort of thing doesn't really happen to me."

Brian's tongue is in his cheek again. Justin knows the man is trying to keep his mouth shut on the retort he's likely got ready and waiting so he rushes on, maybe a little more forcefully than he intended to, " _Because of what I am_. Which…" then he runs out of steam and has to take a steadying breath and lick his lips nervously. "Which isn't actually human."

Now that it's out there, Justin feels some of his confidence returning to him. "I'm not human, Brian. I'm here to help your dad because he doesn’t have much time left and there's a lot he needs to set right before he goes."  Then, because Brian is still looking at him a little blankly Justin spells it out, "I'm a celestial."

This statement is followed by a stretching silence where Justin looks at Brian and the other man just stares back, his expression carefully blank and entirely inscrutable. Then Brian snorts, which quickly becomes a full on laugh, so forceful that his head goes back and his body curls up on the couch, his feet coming off the floor. He actually claps his hands together. "A fucking _angel_ ," he says. 

Justin's nostrils flare a little as he inhales sharply. "Yes."

Brian, however, is still laughing. "You're shitting me."

"I'm not."It's already perfectly clear that Brian's preparing to throw him out on his ass for pulling such a lame joke. The moment he stops killing himself laughing. Well, Justin's come this far, what's a little further?

Humans can not actually look at an angel's true form. As far as Justin knows, only saints and spirits can do that without going blind. There's a middle ground, though. A point between two very different worlds that Justin finds and straddles, pulling a little bit of his true self into his human form.  Abruptly, Brian's laughter cuts right off.

It was maybe a little cruel to snap his wings like that, stretching them out to either side like he is showing off his wingspan, which is impressive. But it's been a while since Justin extended them like this and it feels good. "Do you believe me now?" 

Brian nods, his eyes widened a little, like he's not actually aware of his surroundings, or himself, or anything beyond Justin standing there. Maybe he's going into shock.

Hastily, Justin lowers his wings, curling them forward until they frame his body, his long flight feathers skimming the hardwood. "Brian?" 

"Christ," Brian says when he manages to get his voice back. He raises his hand up, pinches the bridge of his nose as he takes very slow, deliberate breaths.

"I'm sorry if I startled you…"

"What the fuck, Justin!"

"Well, I _tried_ to tell you, but you were just laughing at me!" Justin snaps, and then bites his lip because, oh God, Brian's inching a hand forward toward his wings. Brian's going to touch his wings!

"Can I?" Brian asks, and Justin finds himself nodding, feeling a little shell-shocked. Nobody has ever touched his wings. Justin hasn't shown them to a human before. He sort of figured it was an unspoken rule that you didn't do that, but lightning hasn't struck him down yet…

He is acutely aware of the trace of fingertips skimming ever so gently along his left wingtip, and then Brian leans back and closes his eyes. Apparently, all of this is starting to sink in. _Finally_. "Shit. I can't believe my mother was actually right about this crap. I'm going hell."

Brian says it with resignation and a certain amount of despondency, like his mother actually being right about something is the most depressing thought in the universe. Justin laughs. "It's not that simple."

Hazel eyes blink open again. "I suppose nothing ever is."

Shifting, Justin settles himself on the arm of the couch, furling his wings a little to keep his balance. "It's not all 'smiting' and 'condemnation' you know, there's good things," he assures the other man.

"Let's hope you're right."

Justin sort of wants to explain the epic game of broken telephone that starts with a command from heaven saying 'Love everyone' and ends up with the church advising its congregation to 'live according to the law, or you shall be condemned'. That's probably more than Brian really needs right now, or is looking for, so instead Justin rolls his eyes and says, "Of _course_ I'm right. If you want a higher authority, you'd have to talk directly to God."

Wryly, Brian says, "I make a point of not doing that."

"I know." Then, a little shyly, Justin asks, "Do they freak you out?"

Brian's gaze shifts, and Justin actually feels the man looking at his wings as if the other man's gaze is a physical caress. It makes him shiver. "No." 

"I hate binding them, but most humans find them very distracting and sometimes even _terrifying_ and that's just counterproductive to my goals, so I usually leave them hidden. This feels really good." They lapse back into silence, and Justin knows that really he should be the one to break it. He's the one who asked to talk; he's the one springing all the surprises here. For just one moment, though, he wants to pretend that this is his choice, that he has no other purpose than to share this truth with Brian, that this is the start of something that could just be his.

Brian's voice breaks into Justin's reverie. "Why are you telling me this?" 

Justin tips his head forward and reluctantly admits, "I need your help."

"My old man giving you trouble?"

"Something like that." For all that the Kinney family think they are so stoic as to be impenetrable, Justin can read every one of them like a book. He doesn't need any angelic powers to do it, either. "Are you pissed because Jack's getting divine intervention?"

"It doesn't matter what I think."

"It does to me," Justin says. He slips down off the arm of the chair, his knees bumping against Brian's thigh, his wings stretching up and out behind him. Tentatively, he places a hand on Brian's forearm.  "Look, I don't know how this works. How people get chosen, or why I was sent here over any of the others like me. We don't really get a lot of information. What I _do_ know is that this is bigger than just one person. Okay?"

Brian sighs, his head tipping to rest on the back of the sofa. "We're all God's precious little children."

Justin nods once, emphatic. "Right."

Standing, Brian wanders around the loft, apparently searching for something. Justin watches as the man locates a pack of cigarettes stashed in a drawer in the kitchen, pulls one out and lights it.  A puff of smoke wends its way slowly up toward the ceiling. "You want _my_ help to save my pop's soul."

"Sure," Justin says. "Something like that."

Brian eyes him as he sucks another lungful of smoke. " _My_ help."

"Yeah, Brian." Justin shifts around on the sofa and his wings bump the coffee table. It's been so long, he's forgotten how awkward they can be in confined spaces. "I want _your_ help. Your family is stubborn and impossible, and I can't fight a war on four different fronts. All I'm asking for is that you trust me."

"Trust you," Brian scoffs. "An angel."

"Yes, an _angel_ ," Justin says, irritated. He's not exactly sure _why_ Brian is getting pissed. He's not even sure if _Brian_ knows why he's getting pissed. When Justin tries to cheat and catch a glimpse at the other man's thoughts there's a roiling mess of whirling images laced with curses and remembered snippets of conversations; none of it is pleasant.

Right. So, apparently, Brian is pissed about more than one thing right now, and Justin doesn't have a clue what any one of those contributing issues are.

That is, of course, is when Gus starts making noise, kicking up a fuss. Justin sort of loves the kid even more because his sense of timing is impeccable. In an instant, Brian pulls himself together, putting out his cigarette before heading up the steps to the bed. Justin uses the distraction to gather himself, reluctantly refolding his wings and rising up off the sofa.

When Brian comes down the steps holding his son carefully in his arms, Justin says, "Look, I'm sorry to drop this on you. I know it's a lot to take in. Especially with the conversation you just had with your dad."

Brian frowns. "Stop apologizing. Sorry's bullshit."

Justin smiles a little fondly and shakes his head. "It's really not, you know. Not always." He smoothes his hands down the back of his jeans and then shrugs because, well, this is really awkward. His sneakers squeak on the hardwood as he turns, the shrill sound making him wince. "Okay, well. You've got Gus right now so…" 

Brian's just standing there holding his son and staring, his expression impenetrable. Justin considers delving back into the man's emotions, taking a sneak-peak, but he feels bad enough for spying a second ago and all he'd gotten _then_ had been a whole lot of nothing; and the start of a headache. "Well," Justin says. "Bye!"

The whole mess is too embarrassing and awkward to endure for one second longer. Justin decides promptly that the door is too far away, and it's not like he can really shock Brian anymore than he probably already has so he blinks out of the loft and relocates himself as quickly as possible to the first place that comes into his mind.

He probably should have given his destination a bit more thought, because Justin ends up sitting on the 'Now Leaving Pittsburgh' sign arching over top of the Interstate. True, he's invisible to the naked eye but it's not exactly comfortable up here.

He's feeling too crappy to even consider moving.

_____________________________________________________

  
Jack makes it about three blocks away from Tremont Street before he has to pull over to the side of the road. He wonders if maybe he's having a heart attack. If he's made it this far, been diagnosed with terminal cancer, only to die of a fucking heart condition. He'd laugh but he's too busy trying to unclench his fingers that are stuck around the steering wheel. He's having trouble drawing-in breath, too, and what's that about? His whole body feels hot and cold, a rolling wave that rushes up from his feet, then spills back down in a cold shiver starting at the top of his head.

He's shaking. Not just shaking, Jack realizes with a certain amount of shock. He's _crying_. Months of knowing, and suddenly it's all starting to sink in. In a few months he won't be here anymore. He is dying, and all he can see is Joan dabbing at her eyes and saying, "Excuse me, I apologize," like her watering eyes are something she isn't entitled to. Claire's tear-stricken face, collapsed in grief that has less to do with Jack and his news than it does with her _receiving_ the news, another tick in the check-box list of life's tragedies. Collect all ten and get a prize. Brian's arched eyebrows as he asks, "You need money?" followed by the equally bland question, "Want a drink?" Somewhere in there, Jack had offered up his revelation and it rolled off his son like water across a duck's back. 'Just keep on swimming, sonnyboy,' Jack thinks.

Any other day, and Jack would feel a little satisfied, maybe a little vindicated as he thought: "Fucking Typical."  Any other day, and all of this would be another piece in his puzzle of self-martyrdom. All he'd _done_ for his family and they couldn't even muster up some decent grief over his imminent passing.

But then there was Justin. So fucking stubborn, jaw set and determined. "Just tell me honestly," the blond had asked that morning. "If you got the chance to do it over, would you do it exactly the same?"

It wasn't the first time someone had asked Jack that question, and he's always privately thought that he'd run away screaming a heck of a lot sooner if he had it all again to do over. Run off to college; get the hell out of Pittsburgh if he could.  He'd said as much that morning: "I'd do every single bit of it different. There's not a single thing for me here."

Justin had jerked his chin up, raised his eyebrows. "Are you sure?"

Sitting there in his car, pulled over to the side of the road, Jack thinks, 'No. There's not a single goddamned thing that I'm certain of anymore…'  Except that in a few months, maybe even less than that, he'll be in the ground.   


_____________________________________________________

  
Some days it's just not worth getting out of bed. True, that morning he hadn't had much of a choice because Lindsay had a key, which she had put to use. Marching through the loft door like it was her home, not his. "I tried to call," she'd offered by way of explanation, and then proceeded to off-load Gus onto him because she had been called in to work, and Mel was at the office, and their babysitter was sick or something.

Brian used one of his sick days, and had exactly one half hour to start looking forward to spending some time with his son before Jack had come over. After Jack, had come Justin. After Justin, had come a phone call from Claire, who was hysterical and angry and it had taken Brian forty-five minutes to decipher what it was she railing about, only to determine that it had nothing to do with him, that she just needed someone to vent to and no one else had taken her call.

Brian would be getting drunk about now but that's not really an option. He carts Gus over to Debbie's house and tries to plead his case and maybe buy himself a few hours at a bar, but for all that she seems concerned for him and sympathetic about the news that his dad is dying she also apparently finds it hilarious that he's stuck with his kid when he _could_ be going out to the Leather Ball.  "Besides," she says, perching the back of her wrist on her hip. "I've got the late shift at the diner."

Brian immediately decides that he needs to make new friends. Mature, responsible people who he might actually consider leaving his kid with. The only mature and responsible people he knows are Lindsay and Mel and well, that's not really an option at this moment. He's sitting in his Jeep, his hands resting at the top of the steering wheel and his forehead resting on his hands, Gus strapped into his car seat in the back when it occurs to him that he actually has one other option. The only trouble is, Brian has no idea how to reach him.

"Justin," he says to the steering wheel. In the back seat, Gus burbles happily and shakes his rattle. "Justin!" 

"Why are you yelling?" Justin asks from his position in the front passenger seat. "I'm right here."

"Well, you _weren't_ there a second ago." Brian's not in the mood to talk to anyone. In fact, he's confident that in his current state he should not be allowed anywhere near any animate thing anywhere on the planet. 

Justin does not seem to pick up on his mood. Or, if he does, he ignores it. "What's up?"

"'What's up' is, I need you to look after Gus."

"What?"

The more the idea had been given time to formulate in his head, the more determined Brian has become about it, so he has his answer ready and waiting. "You asked me to help you with your little bullshit mission from God. If you want my help you'll do this, otherwise the deal is off."

Vexingly, Justin does not seem offended or perturbed in the least bit. "It's not a problem," he says, easily. "I'll look after Gus. Take as long as you need. You don't have to make any deals with me." Brian finds himself fixed with a blue-eyed stare laced with concern, and every shitty moment of his epically shitty day is rising up and slamming into him all at once.

"Are you okay?" Justin asks, like he is genuinely concerned. He probably is. It makes Brian feel even worse, somehow. All of a sudden the memory slams into him: Justin dipping his head a little, almost sheepish asking, "Do they freak you out?" like it actually matters. 

"I'm fine," Brian says, and then, because he doesn't think he can physically stand a moment longer feeling as constrained as he does, he opens his car door and slides out from behind the wheel. "You know how to drive, right?" he asks and, seeing Justin nod a little dazedly, Brian slams the door closed. "Keys are in the ignition."

He's halfway down the street before he realizes that Justin probably doesn't have anywhere to take Gus and hopes that the implicit invitation to use the loft was understood. Then he promptly pushes his thoughts away, blanking his mind and heading at a steady pace toward salvation. Babylon. Always open, always waiting. Ready to blot out the world, the perfect pain management.  


_____________________________________________________

  
The trouble is, Joan keeps her house too pristine. She comes to this conclusion with a glass of scotch in her hand, standing in the center of her living room, surveying her land. Everything in its place. Everything as it should be. There's nothing to dust, or clean or polish. Her house is immaculate, just as always. Like her mother taught her.

She's looking for busywork and coming up empty, and so instead she takes another swig of her scotch and promptly decides that she rather hates this drink. She finishes off her glass and pours another. After the second glass she cuts herself off, recapping the bottle and placing it back into the cabinet. Jack, the bastard, had finished off her gin. True, she could have gone to the store but after she had washed and dressed and finished fussing with her hair, Joan had been unable to see much point in any of it. Even going out to buy some proper liquor had seemed like a senseless expedition.

Eventually, she finds herself standing in the door to the garage, hovering between her house and her world and the garage, which she has always thought of as Jack's space, p robably because Jack comes in here and gets drunk and pretends he's fixing things when all he's really doing is trying to hide from her. He thinks she doesn't know, but you don't survive thirty-five years of marriage without learning a thing or two about the man you're married to.

And she has. Survived, that is. One shotgun wedding, two children, three affairs all of them Jack's. She remembers asking her mother for advice the first time Jack had gotten drunk and smacked her across the face. She'd been told to look to the church, which Joan had promptly done. The priest, a man, naturally, had told her that marriage was sacred. That she should try to understand her husband, that she should be strong and endure. That God would help her.

From that day forward Joan had gone to church every Sunday waiting for a revelation that might help her understand. She bought a bottle of gin every Monday when that revelation failed to come. Once a year, during Lent, she'd go to confession and confide that she still didn't understand, that she was still angry, that none of this felt right. "He's hitting my son, now."

And always the answer, "Have faith."

Joan thinks that she doesn't actually have any faith. She lost that a long time ago, but her memories of that moment are clouded by gin. That's fine, because she doesn't want them. What she has now is the guise of faith, which she clings to. Sometimes it feels like God is the only thing holding her back from flying into a rage. Religion reminds her of what she should be striving toward, and gin numbs her pain enough that she can almost believe she's getting closer to it. That she's 'doing the right thing'. Whatever that means.

Somewhere in between her ruminations Joan finds herself shoving boxes around the garage. She's ripping open the cardboard flaps and pulling out objects drowned in memory, and with each box she finds a little bit more of her fury. One shotgun wedding. Two kids. Three affairs. Thirty-five years trying to be the perfect wife, the wife Jack might have wanted, at the expense of any chance she might have had at being a good mother. She should have never had to make that choice but she had, instinctively, at some point. She suspects the only reason Jack won-out is because he had been able to voice his displeasure the loudest. 

"What are you doing in here?" Jack demands, standing in the doorway she'd left open. 

"Seven years I've been asking you to go through these boxes," she says, pulling herself up straight. "Since you'll be dead soon, I suppose you've managed to neatly avoid the responsibility."

His eyes widen like she's actually scored a hit. On some level she is aghast, horrified at herself for saying something so callous. Another part of her is infinitely proud of itself. They're at a stand off, she realizes. Neither of them moving.

Then Jack says, "Let me do that." It comes out choked, barely audible. He clears his throat and says it again, "Let me."

She pushes the box she's been rifling through aside. "I'll call the Goodwill in the morning."

When she's made it to the door, she's halted by his voice. "This box? You're giving this box away?"

The box in question holds a miscellany of objects, most of them from years ago dating back to before the marriage. "There's nothing there I want."

She turns to go but he stops her again. "I could have done better by you, Joanie."

It is such an obvious statement that it almost embarrasses her that he said it at all. She ends up laughing and the sound is sharp and brittle and echoes off the closed doors of the garage.

"I _should_ have done better," he corrects himself. "I should have done a _lot_ better by you, Joanie."

The use of that name, one she hasn't heard in years and has almost entirely forgotten, makes her choke down a wild ripping thing that tries to climb up out of her throat. "I'm not talking about this," she declares, and then shuts the door to the house.   


_____________________________________________________

  
It's dark when Brian comes home. It's dark, and it's cold, and he staggers out of the cab and spends half a moment freaking out when he fails to locate his keys in any of his pockets. "I got it," Michael says, holding up his own key hanging from his keychain.  Michael keeps his arm wrapped around Brian's waist as they make their way to the elevator even though Brian has regained the majority of his balance and is having no trouble walking on his own.

Unlocking the door, Michael relinquishes his hold on Brian and then, of all the things for him to notice and then focus on, he points at a pair of sneakers sitting, one in front of the other, on the hardwood. "What the fuck is that?"

Granted, the sneakers are literally _right_ in front of the door and Michael nearly breaks his neck tripping over them, but there's that accusatory tone in his voice, and Brian doesn't appreciate it. "What, you thought I left Gus by himself?"

Michael makes a face like a little kid whose hand has just been slapped as he reached for the cookie jar. He recovers quickly. "Did you leave some trick to watch your kid?"

"Right, Mikey. That's _exactly_ what I did. I pulled some random guy off the street, invited him into my home and then left him here with my kid…" Well, actually, that's sort of a little bit true, maybe.

"Sorry, geez!" Michael says, raising his hands up. "Are you gonna be okay?"

"I'm fine," Brian says. It feels like he's been saying that a lot, lately. He flings an arm around his friend's shoulders and presses a kiss to the side of Michael's cheek. "You don't need to tuck me in, you know."

The laugh Michael gives in response is a little shrill but Brian doesn't comment on it. Instead, he starts stripping off his shirt while Michael steps carefully over the sneakers and starts to close the door. "Night, Brian."

"Night, Mikey." 

The light is on above the bed, soft blue light spilling out of the bedroom and into the main part of the loft. Brian is a little relieved because he doesn't particularly want to turn on any major lights and run the risk of waking Gus. When he makes it to the top of the steps though, he wishes the light was off because what he sees almost shatters him. 

Justin is lying on the bed obviously fast asleep. His feet are bare, his legs tucked up a little. He's on the right side of the bed, his left arm thrown forward across the dark blue of the sheets and Brian can see Gus cradled there, carefully and contentedly slumbering in the bond's loose embrace. Justin's wings are unfurled, curling around them, the left one draped across Gus like a blanket, shielding.

"I didn't mean to wake you up," Brian finds himself saying, when he notices Justin's gaze.

The blond blinks slowly, his voice hushed as he asks, "Are you feeling any better?"

Brian shrugs and then, when Justin keeps looking at him, goes back to stripping out of his clothes. "Did he give you any trouble?"

"Gus? Please. He's the most cooperative human I've dealt with in a _long_ time."

The blond starts to shift his wings pulling back as he sits up. It makes Brian pause. "What are you doing?"

Freezing, as if Brian has just told him that he's sitting on a land mine, Justin says, "Giving you your bed back?"

"Well don't." It comes out a little sharper than he means it to, but Justin starts to lie back down so Brian goes into the bathroom to finish getting ready for bed. When he reemerges, Justin's wings are still draped over the bed but his feathers are ruffling periodically. "Leave them out," Brian says, as he slides in on Gus' other side. "I don't mind."

"They take up a lot of room," Justin says, embarrassed. There's a question in his tone, an unspoken, 'Are you sure?', but since Brian has already stated his position clearly he closes his eyes and remains stubbornly silent.

The sound of ruffling feathers falls silent. Eventually, Brian starts to fall asleep, his breath smoothing out, his body relaxing, his arm resting just beneath Justin's, draped over Gus' body in a protective gesture. Just before he drops completely into slumber Brian feels something covering his side carefully, soft and downy; a light embrace. He's fairly certain Justin has stretched his wing out across the mattress but he falls asleep before he can open his eyes and confirm it.  


_____________________________________________________

  
Justin isn't in the loft when Brian wakes up the next morning. Brian feels strangely bereft to realize this, though he isn't certain why. Gus goes back to his mommies and Brian goes back to work, but it feels a bit like he's been put on pause. He keeps hearing Justin's request for trust, followed by Debbie's voice and what she had said the other day. That it's his last chance to tell his father who he really is. The last opportunity he might have to put his money where his mouth is, to practice the philosophy he preaches.

After work, Brian returns to the loft and changes and makes it halfway to his childhood home by convincing himself he's just going out for a drink. Once he's crossed that halfway point though, there's no more pretending. He completes the journey powered by sheer force of will. He has nothing to be ashamed of. He's proud of who he is, and what he's become.

Brian had thought he'd have a bit of time to get his thoughts in order, but when he pulls up in front of his parents' house the garage doors are open and he can see his dad inside, rifling through cardboard boxes. "Hey, sonnyboy," he greets halfheartedly as Brian walks up the drive.

"Shouldn't you be taking it easy?"

"I've got to get everything in order," Jack says. Then he shakes his head. "Your mother's been asking me to go through these boxes for almost a decade." He bends back over a cardboard box, one arm reaching inside to shift through the contents. "Better late than never, right?"

Brian draws in a breath. "Right."

"What's up?" Then Jack pulls out his old bowling ball and hefts it up, grinning. "Hey! Remember this?"

"Yeah, pop."

"From when I used to bowl with the Eastway Kings. Remember when you were eight, you used to come and watch your old man bowl. Never had the knack for it yourself," he adds, like he considers this one of his son's greatest failings.

Brian helps his father shift one of the boxes aside. "Pop, we need to talk."

"Christ." Jack flips open another box and glances inside. "I don't think I've ever heard you say that. Must be something serious." Only half-joking he adds, "Thought you'd try to sneak something in under the wire, sonnyboy?"

"I'm gay," Brian blurts.

Jack's expression freezes. Brian spends about one minute feeling guilty that he didn't lead into that better, and then he flashes to the other day, to his dad sitting down on a couch and saying, "I've got cancer." Like father like son, apparently.

"You picked a hell of a fine time to tell me," Jack says, his voice rough, sounding more like a snarl than a statement. "As if I don't have enough to deal with right now!"

Years Brian has spent with this truth. Enduring his father's endless 'advice' about the ladies. He honestly doesn't know what he was expecting, but he can't help feeling disappointed. "Well," Brian says, trying to sound cavalier and not wounded. "If I waited any longer, there might not be anyone around to tell."

Jack shoves a box right off the stack, sending it toppling down onto the cement floor of the garage with a resounding clatter, it's contents spilling out. Then he whirls on Brian, shoving him backward forcefully. "It should be you!" he snarls. " _You_ should be the one dying! Not me!"

Years ago, Brian probably would have taken a step back, cowered away from his old man, maybe even turned and run away. In that moment though, he doesn't feel a trace of the kid he used to be. He's twenty-nine and he's making good money, doing something he enjoys, something he's good at. He's sick of being judged. Sick of carrying around this weight of expectation, this desire to please someone who, he realizes in a sudden cold-rush, he actually has no respect for.

"Well, I'm _not_ the one who's dying, dad," Brian says, stepping closer rather than backing away. " _You_ are."   



	6. Chapter 6

Brian isn't thinking clearly as he strides into his loft. 

Just about the only thing in his head has been getting home and breaking open a bottle of Beam. He's not certain if it's shock or hurt propelling him; he's moving without conscious thought. He's picked up momentum and he's fairly certain it would be harder to stop than it is to keep going. So he goes.

He goes until he's half way to his kitchen and a figure blinks into existence just to his right and then, still on autopilot, Brian detours and keeps walking until he can't walk anymore. Until Justin's arms come up and lock around him, until Brian's body crashes into the slighter form and finally comes to rest.

He's not sure, of the two of them, who is clinging harder. Brian would like to believe that it's Justin, but he's pretty sure that's not the case. His whole body is shaking, like someone has plugged him into a sparking socket. 

"I don't want to talk about it," he says when he's able to talk. When his body stops vibrating and he can take a step away without shattering into miniscule fragments.

"Do you want Michael?" Justin asks, his tone making it plain that he is prepared to do whatever Brian asks. With the slightest nod, Brian thinks that Justin would blink out of the loft, appear without ceremony right beside Michael and snatch him back here without any explanation whatsoever.

It's a strangely comforting notion.

Instead of an answer, Brian's fingers curl into the sleeve of the blond's shirt, Justin's eyes shifting down to watch the gesture. Justin nods. "Shower," he prescribes, with enough confidence in his voice that Brian is able to unfreeze himself.

He sheds his clothes as he moves, casting them aside without his usual concern for returning things to their place. The numbness that fell over him after leaving his parents' garage doesn't begin to abate until he's standing under the shower spray. He tips his head forward, reaches out and turns the water to run as hot as he can make it.

When he was a kid, Brian used to imagine coming out to his parents. Somehow, he had always imagined it happening in the middle of a heated argument. He'd throw up his hands and say, "Well, guess what, dad? I'm gay!" with all the stubborn defiance of a teenager. He'd imagine his mother falling to her knees and crying and consulting God and cursing him to the devil. His dad's reaction always changed.

Brian had convinced himself long ago that the reason he had never told his parents about his sexuality was because he didn't need their approval, didn't owe them a single thing more. Standing here in his shower, he realizes that the real reason is that he already knew how it would end. If he'd come out as a kid he would have had nowhere to go. He would have been kicked out of his home and, as much as he hated it there, he wasn't ready to go away from it.

Brian wanted to leave home on his _own_ terms.

He stays under the spray until he can't any longer. Then he towels off and changes into a pair of jeans and a black tank-top, leaving his hair damp as he wanders out to the main part of the loft, following a tangy-sweet enticing smell. The stash of emergency candles he keeps has apparently been raided to create a make-shift shrine to the Gods of Thai food on his coffee table. White scentless candles flickering, illuminating a large quantity of cardboard boxes and dark plastic containers.

Brian catches sight of Justin, rummaging around in his refrigerator, and asks, "Did you wave your magic wand and make dinner appear?"

" I'm getting pretty good with Kinney-speak ," Justin says, pulling two bottles of beer from the fridge. "By 'magic wand' you meant my dick, right?"

The retort makes Brian laugh, and he accepts the beer Justin hands over, even though he was hoping for something stronger. "For an angel you have a pretty dirty mouth."

Smirking, Justin says, "You have _no_ idea," then he collapses onto the couch and grabs up a pair of chopsticks. "But in answer to your question, 'no'. I used the strange, magical contraption known as the 'telephone'." He flashes a Cheshire-cat grin in Brian's general direction as he adds, "and your credit card."

"Smells good." Brian settles onto the couch and accepts the little box Justin thrusts in his direction.

"Wait." Justin snatches the box back, abruptly. "Don’t get settled yet. You have to put in a movie."

"A movie?" Justin just stares at him expectantly, so Brian pushes off from the couch and finds his video library, picking something blindly. He doesn’t feel like watching anything.

With the lights off and the movie playing, though, Brian feels the knot in his stomach loosen enough that he thinks he might actually be able to eat. Justin is a silent companion, seemingly happy to munch on Thai food straight out of the container and watch whatever Brian has selected for their feature film, and between that and the hot shower Brian feels the flooding relief of distance slipping between him and the night's earlier events.

Midway through the movie Justin gets up and grabs them both some water, and somewhere before the credits roll Brian falls asleep.

_____________________________________________________

  
In December, Claire realizes that her father is never going to sit still long enough to tell his grand sons about the cancer. She waits until a Saturday afternoon and calls the boys in for a nice lunch, and then tries to explain everything to the best of her ability.

One hour later, she finds herself sitting in an empty house, on the phone with her mother. "John asked if he'd inherit anything!" 

"Claire." Joan's voice sounds infinitely tired, in that way it _always_ sounds when Claire tries to talk to her mother about her own children. "They are spoiled teenagers. They can't possibly know better."

"But they didn't care about daddy at all!"

"You are a thirty-three year old woman with two children of her own and a father who is half-way into the grave. It's time to stop being a 'daddy's girl'. Stop being so naïve."

Claire doesn't drink, except a glass of wine or champagne on special occasions. She only goes to church for Christmas and Easter and doesn't keep a Bible in her home. She has, in fact, done everything in her power to avoid becoming her mother. Has made a point of _never_ being as silent and frigid as the woman who bore her. Sometimes she worries, though, that her determined efforts to make her father proud have somehow managed to turn her into exactly what she vowed she would never become.

Her father loves her, Claire is certain of this. He doesn't always find a way to show it, but it must be true. While Joan Kinney spent most of her time telling Claire all the things that she _couldn't_ have, Jack Kinney spent _his_ time buying those exact things for her.

"She's nine years old, Jack. She doesn't need her ears pierced," Joan said.

"Sure she does. She wants to be a pretty girl, doesn't she?"

Claire remembers her mother turning to her then, "Claire, do you want your ears pierced?"

"Daddy says a proper lady _always_ wears earrings! I already picked out the ones I want!"

She smiles to herself as she sorts through her sons' laundry, filling up a large plastic basket with vaguely smelling clothes. John should probably be wearing deodorant now. Claire makes a mental note to buy him some. 

Memories of her ninth birthday and her father's present for her bring up another recollection. Of being thirteen, with short-cropped hair because she was following a fashion trend. "Why would you let her get her hair cut like that?" she remembers her father asking.

"She's not a child. She can decide for herself how she wants to have her hair cut."

"I can't believe I paid to have my daughter ask some fairy stylist to cut her hair like a dyke's."

Claire remembers coming down the stairs in her new summer dress. "I'm ready to go to grandma's!"

Jack had narrowed his eyes at her. "The hell you are. Go upstairs and put on some earrings. A lady doesn't leave the house without earrings."

"I don't want to wear them, daddy!"

"Go upstairs this minute and pick some damned earrings! It's bad enough you have your hair like that…"

For her sixteenth birthday, Jack had given her a whole case of makeup. "Daddy, this is amazing!"

He'd nodded his head and said, "Don't leave home without it." He hadn't been joking.

Stuffing a load of whites into the wash, Claire takes a long steadying breath and then remembers Brian at sixteen, sullen and irritable. "I'm not getting pop _anything_."

"Bur Brian, it's _Father's Day_!"

"I'm not spending a single damned _cent_ of my allowance on that _asshole_."

"Don't talk about daddy like that, Brian!"

"Don't be such a fucking _idiot_ , Claire."

She remembers her father drunk. Her father yelling. She remembers getting spanked when she was little because she refused to eat her steak, which had been bloody and entirely unappetizing, and she remembers never complaining about her dinner ever again.

In a rush, she remembers being fourteen, sitting in her room and trying to finish her geography assignment. Her father had been adamant that she come downstairs and set the table: "Brian, sit down. You're sister will do it."

"It's no problem, pop."

"You're sister is going to set the goddamned table, son. Claire, get down here right now and get the kitchen ready to serve the meal your mother cooked. Don't make me tell you again."  She had made him tell her again.

Besides a few times when she was very young, her father never hit her. That was something he reserved for Brian, because Claire's little brother was always looking for and finding, trouble. Jack yelled at her though, she remembers that. Sometimes the yelling seemed worse than the rest of it.

Adding the detergent, Claire shuts the door of the washing machine and pushes the memories away.

She's got to go pick up her kids from school.   


_____________________________________________________

  
Justin comes and goes, appearing at the Diner sometimes for a cup of coffee when Brian stops by for lunch, or popping into existence standing in the middle of the loft just as Brian's kicking his feet up to watch a movie. Sometimes when Brian returns home from work he finds Justin cooking in the kitchen: "It's ricotta cheese and spinach casserole. Try it before you start bitching at me."

He seems to have no ulterior motives when he arrives other than to force Brian to eat things he otherwise wouldn't, and offer smart-ass remarks to everything that Brian says. He never mentions Jack, or the rest of Brian's family. Brian doesn't ask. 

There seems to be no pattern to the blond's presence, either. Days pass and Brian starts to wonder if Justin has gone away for good, and then suddenly there he is, sitting on the ledge of the loft windows and staring out into the night. He goes through Brian's computer paper with sketch after sketch of just about everything including Brian, naked and asleep. "I should feel violated," Brian says, when he finds that particular sketch.

Justin just grins. "But you can't, because you're too busy feeling hopelessly flattered. Am I right?"

Brian sticks his tongue in his cheek and tries not to smile. "You made a few exaggerations."

Pointedly, Justin glanced at the crotch of Brian's jeans and asks, "Did I?"

Some nights, after Brian kicks out the latest trick and turns from the door Justin appears, perching on the back of the couch. "Do you mind?" he asks, and Brian invariably shakes his head and can't help but stare as Justin's wings appear, stretching out wide before curling around him.

He clears his throat. "You coming to bed?" 

As always, Justin wrinkles his nose. "Those sheets are disgusting, Brian."

Brian strips his bed, pulls out new sheets, and then goes in to shower. When he comes out, Justin is lying with his wings draped across the mattress. "Move the fuck over," Brian mutters as he tries to shift a surprisingly heavy wing aside.

"Say 'please'."

"This is _my_ bed."

"Honestly, Brian. What is with these mixed messages? _You're_ the one who invited me to sleep here."

"Well then stop talking and go to sleep already."

An increasing number of Brian's nights end this way. It starts to feel normal. Familiar and easy.

It starts to be something Brian looks forward to.   


_____________________________________________________

  
Jack has a persistent cough now, a rattle in his breath that never goes away. 

It is just about the only sound in his house these days.

Joan keeps the majority of her words to staccato sentences that make use of as few syllables as possible: "Dinner is ready" or "I'm going out", the door is always closed before he can ask her where to. She is stoic and impossible to read. Jack wonders if she is impatient for him to die. If she remembers how it was when they were together, before.

Before Jack messed it up.

He can see that, now. See how he made her pay every day for her choice, how he made it impossible to move beyond that moment. He doesn't need Justin to tell him that Joan had been entirely honest when she had said she was prepared to raise her baby by herself. She genuinely had been letting him off the hook.

Jack refused to be released back into the water.

It wasn't _her_ choice that made him angry. It was his. Now, Joan won't stand to let him say two words to her, let alone apologize or try to make any of it right. 

He corners Justin and asks how the kid thinks Jack can make any of it better if the people around him won't even _look_ at him. "You already _are_ making it better," the kid says.

"Everything is a god damned mess, and _no one_ is talking to me!"

"I don't know what to tell you, Jack," Justin says. "You went a long time making a lot of people miserable, hurting them deep down. If you expected to turn around and patch all of that up with an 'I'm sorry', then you're a bigger fool than I thought."

Jack thinks that George Bailey had it easy. Everyone came through for him at the end and he didn't even need to say a single damned thing. He didn't even need to _ask_ for help. Justin shrugs. "George Bailey was, fundamentally, a good person," he says. "Also he was fictional."

Apparently the kid has been brushing-up on his black-and-white movies.

Jack spends his days in the garage going through boxes, or in his house packing things up. It feels, bizarrely, as if he is moving out. He goes to the bar, meets with his friends and drinks. He eats when he eats. Most days he doesn't ever feel hungry. He thinks about his family, and the demented Twelve Step Program for the Damned Soul that he's apparently working his way through, with Justin as his angelic sponsor. He wonders how the kid can say that things are already changing because they feel exactly the same.

No, they feel worse.

It's something that's confirmed when Jack finishes with the boxes in the garage and decides to reward himself with a line of stiff drinks. He goes upstairs to change, and when he comes down he realizes that he is not, as he had thought, alone in the house.

Joan is in the kitchen breaking plates.

Emotions are not Jack's strong suit. He doesn't consider himself particularly adept at handling them, and he certainly does not enjoy them. The instinct to sneak out the front door is strong, but he finds himself draping his jacket over the banister and walking down the hall.

Just to look at her, Jack doesn't think he would ever have guessed something was wrong. Her hair is in place, her make-up perfect, her mouth in that straight line and the quirk that eloquently and succinctly says, 'You are beneath my regard' is in place. The woman's so locked down lately; Jack thinks it's entirely possible the pressure just built-up and now she's exploding. Exploding in a disturbingly calm controlled kind of way. It's certainly not something Jack understands.

When he explodes he's been known to flatten entire cities.

She's standing by the sink, scraping last night's dinner into the trash. Jack recognizes it as the plate she left out, covered in plastic-wrap for him. There are shards of white porcelain in the sink already, the remains of the plate he heard smashing, no doubt.

He's still trying to think of something to say when she notices him standing in the door. "What are you doing here?" she asks, her voice flat and strong, entirely incongruous with the smashed plate. "I thought you went out."

"Jesus, Joanie."

She sniffs, throwing the plate into the sink hard enough that it clatters but doesn't crack. "Don't call me that."

"Come here," he says, as he moves forward. "Hey, hey," he croons, and ignores the cold stare she levels at him. "What's wrong, Joanie?"

She stays in his embrace, though she doesn't return it. Standing there, it occurs to him that's it's been a heck of a long time since he's put his arms around her because it feels awkward as hell, but he holds on. After a moment, she places a hand flat against his chest, almost as if she wants to push him away but the pressure of a push never comes. He cups the back of her head with his hand and asks again, "What's wrong?" 

The corner of her mouth twists up, her hand touching his cheek as she shakes her head and says, "Tell me one thing that's _right_ , Jack."   


_____________________________________________________

  
Time doesn't hold a lot of meaning for Justin. The only deadline that has any sort of weight is the date of Jack Kinney's death. Justin has other commitments of course, other people to help, but the Kinney household occupies the greater part of his thoughts. He works diligently; doing what he can for them, whenever he can, but Justin has no idea what he's doing with Brian.

The loft is a safe haven, a shelter that Justin isn't entitled to and shouldn't be making use of. 

In a lot of ways, he suspects he might be exploiting someone he is trying to help. But Brian seems to expect his presence now and Justin can't bring himself to disappoint the man. 

They never talk about it. At times, he wonders if Brian understands that once Jack dies, Justin will leave and that will be the end of it. Whatever 'it' is. 

They're not building a relationship or falling in love. That would require effort on one or both of their parts, and Justin is certain that neither one of them is investing much thought into whatever it is they're sharing. They fell into it all those weeks ago and neither one of them has bothered to climb out because it feels good. Comfortable and soothing, tinged with something else that Justin can't put a name to.

It feels like they're perpetually holding their breath, maybe. Waiting for the right moment to exhale. Though when that moment might be, or what it will entail is a mystery to him.   


_____________________________________________________

  
"Hey, sonnyboy! Anyone home?" Lindsay's eyes go comically wide at the shout, and Brian sees the precise moment when she realizes that when she unlocked the door intent on picking up Gus, she'd left it wide open. It's a habit that most of Brian's friends have, unlocking the door and coming in without hesitation, and proceeding to talk to him or demand things of him regardless of what he's doing, or who he is in the middle of. So to speak.

Brian waits for a second because if Jack is here, maybe Justin has followed him, but he hasn't. Brian clenches his jaw and his narrow-eyed gaze makes Lindsay look even guiltier. "I'm sorry," she mouthes at him, picking up Gus and stepping out of view, like she plans on hiding in the bathroom until whatever this is has ended.

"What are you doing here?" Brian asks, stepping down from his bedroom.

Jack holds both his hands up in instant surrender, like Brian just drew a gun on him. "Your door was open, sonnyboy," he says. "I won't stay long." When Brian's only response is to raise his eyebrows, Jack pulls something from his jacket pocket. "I just wanted to give you this."

It looks like a piece of paper. Brian watches as Jack glances down at whatever is in his hands, and then offers it over. "I found it when I was going through those boxes. In the garage. I thought maybe you might want it."

It's a photograph. Small and square and crinkled. Brian recognizes the kitchen of his parents' place, how it looked before it was renovated, bright and colorful. His dad is holding a baby in his arms and smiling wide, looking proud and pleased all at once. "That's me and you," Jack says. "You're four months old in that picture."

There's a twisting knot of _something_ clenching inside him, confused and lost, that doesn't know what to feel. He can't stop staring at the picture, can't stop thinking that the smiling man proudly holding up that baby was the same man who took his pregnant wife out for a fancy dinner and then demanded she abort that same baby. Brian huffs.  "Why are you smiling?"

Jack shrugs, raises his brows a little. "Isn't that what you're supposed to do when someone takes your picture?" Then he sags, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jacket as he says, "Listen. I don't want you to tell your mother that you're a fag."

Brian grins darkly. Of _course_ , the real reason for the visit. He considers heading over to his liquor stash because the urge to move is almost as strong as the urge to avoid avoid avoid. He doesn't want to give even an inch of ground, or appear to concede, so the end result is that Brian just stands there. "What?"

"Things are hard enough for her, right now. If you tell her, she'll be a fucking mess three times a day praying for your soul so…"

"Since when do you care about mom?" Brian snaps, then holds out the picture. "I don't want this."

Jack seems momentarily lost for words, his eyes shifting from Brian's face to the photograph in his hand, like he can't decide whether to respond to Brian's accusation, or to the rejection of the quasi-peace offering. After a moment, Brian lets the photograph fall to the hardwood, Jack's gaze tracking its drifting descent.

He stands there, staring at the floor, at the square of paper that has landed picture-side up. Clearing his throat, Jack says, "You might change your mind someday, you know. When I'm gone."

"I doubt it."

"I don't know where you got this fucking chip on your shoulder from…" he's about to say more, Brian can tell. Another of those classic Jack Kinney rants in the making, but then he trails off. Brian's confusion lasts as long as it takes for him to turn around and realize that Lindsay has stepped forward to the top of the bedroom steps, Gus in her arms.

"Mister Kinney," she greets with a sweet little smile. That false, friendly reserved socialite smile. "You probably don't remember me. I'm Lindsay Peterson."

And his dad, instantly charmed by a pretty blond, changes his tune. "Of course I remember you." He looks a bit teasing as he leans forward and winks, "You're still a looker."

"Christ," Brian scoffs. "Do you still think you're a lady's man?"

Jack glances at him, momentarily awkward and out of place, but his gaze shifts to Gus and he smiles again. "I met this little guy before, but I didn't get his name."

"Oh," Lindsay darts a look over to Brian like she's asking how much she should say. Brian just stares at her. If she'd just closed the fucking door he could have avoided this mess. If she kept Gus quiet and went into the bathroom, Jack probably would have left by now. "Well," Lindsay says, hesitant. "This is Gus."

Brian watches as his dad leans forward, getting a better look at the bundled baby, his smile evening out, softening. "You have yourself a beautiful son." He steals another look Brian's way and then steps back. "I'll uh," he clears his throat, shuffling back further. "I'll be on my way."

Jack steps over the photograph as he heads for the door, and Brian wonders if Justin had a hand in this visit or not. Thinks that probably, regardless of what Brian might have wanted, the blond would have said something if he planned another interaction between father and son. Some kind of heads-up or warning or something.

"There's something else you should know," Brian finds himself saying, taking Gus from out of Lindsay's arms. When Jack turns around, looking almost like he's bracing himself for a fight, Brian says, "Gus is your grandson."

Brian stands there holding his son, staring at his father and watching as the man's eyes track from Brian's face down to Gus'. "My what?" Brian raises his eyebrows because he doesn't feel like repeating himself. Jack says, "My _grandson_."

Jack paces forward until he's standing close and then his eyes shoot from Lindsay to Gus and then back to Brian and demands to know, "What the fuck's going on?" A pleased little grin starts to spread across his face, relief building up in his body so obviously that Brian can see it happening. "Were you screwing with me, sonnyboy, before? You're not a fairy?"

"No, I'm not screwing with you," Brian says. "But this is still my son."

The conflict in his father's face is almost as palpable as the relief that Brian had seen a second before. It's painful to watch and Lindsay must agree because, ever the peace-maker, she steps up beside Brian. "Jack, would you like to hold him?"

"Uh," Jack says, sheepish and suddenly nervous. "I probably shouldn't…it's been a while since I held a baby…" There's a gleam in his eye that Brian doesn't register as building tears until Jack says, his voice a little thicker, "Yeah… Yes, I would…" and reaches forward.

The tears don't spill over, and though Brian is reluctant, he lets Gus go, lets Jack hold him, bouncing him gently in his arms. "Hello, Gus," Jack says, his voice almost a whisper. "It's a pleasure to meet you, little man."

Brian can't help but notice that the smile his dad is giving his son is the same one as in the photograph that's lying, discarded, on the floor.   


_____________________________________________________

  
Brian doesn't mention his father's visit to Justin though he suspects that the blond probably knows about it anyway. He'd waited until Lindsay had taken Gus back home to pick-up the picture on the floor, but instead of throwing it away like a part of him wanted to, he'd ended up putting it in his sock drawer, intending to forget about it. He couldn't.

The image stays firmly in his mind even though he's buried the picture beneath a pile of his least-loved socks. The memory of his dad smiling and holding Gus stays vivid in his memory, the sound of his dad's voice, whisper-soft and almost _caring._ No, not 'almost'.

It isn't just anger he's feeling, it's something else, too, and that 'something' makes Brian even more annoyed because his dad had been a mean old brute who had never been there when Brian needed him. It doesn't matter that he is partially responsible for Brian's very existence because that was where the attachment ended.

The next time Justin flickers into his loft and starts preparing something in the kitchen, however, Brian finds himself leaning against the center island and saying, "So, how's my old man doing?"

It might have been comical how Justin sort of freezes, fumbling the fork he's using to mix up whatever it is he has in that bowl, but Brian is too preoccupied with his perpetual internal tug-o-war to notice. "He's fine," Justin says. He goes back to mixing, only to stop again. "He's getting worse. His cough is pretty persistent now. Every day, everything just gets a little harder."

"Yeah." Brian spins the bottle of water he's been drinking idly on the counter. Watching the clear contents slosh inside their plastic prison. "I wasn't really asking about his health."

Justin nods and goes back to mixing and then, all at once, drops the fork back into the bowl and sets the whole thing down on the counter. "Can I tell you something?" 

When Brian stops fiddling with the plastic bottle and nods, Justin wipes his hands on a kitchen towel, a frown wrinkling his brow. He sets the towel aside, fixes Brian with his sharp blue eyes and says, "This thing with Jack, I don't think it's about redemption. Heaven or Hell, saving him from one fate or another…"

"You mean you don't know?"

Justin shrugs. "I'm not a Guardian Angel, Brian. I go where I'm sent, and I do whatever I can to make things better. I don't get an instruction manual, nobody sits me down and gives me a briefing, but I'm pretty sure having a personal angel sitting on your shoulder and telling you that you're messing up is reserved for, like, important people or something. At the very least, it goes against free will. Kinda. I mean, don’t you think?"

Brian has no idea about that. He hasn't given much thought to theological issues, the state of the soul in general or his in particular. A few months ago, if someone told him that one day he'd be sitting in his loft while an angel made him dinner, Brian would have laughed and then phoned up his Disco Pharmacologist and asked for ten more of whatever the guy who came up with this shit was on.

He's still having trouble reconciling Justin's mission and Jack. He can't look at the picture of the man without fighting an epic internal battle, and yeah, most days he's silently fuming that of all the people on the entire planet that could receive a little heavenly support, _Jack Kinney_ is the one chosen. Well, Brian already figured religion was a joke but, come one, that's a serious laughing matter right there. Who the hell is giving out that kind of direction?

"If it's not redemption," Brian asks. "Then what?"

"I dunno." Justin shrugs, looking away, his body language practically screaming that he has a theory he's hesitant to share. Brian lifts his eyebrows and stares purposefully until Justin gives in. "Maybe it's about healing. Whether you want to admit it or not, Jack has touched a lot of lives."

"Yeah," Brian scoffs. "Mostly for the worse."

Justin shrugs again, then turns around and goes back to preparing dinner, pouring whatever he's been mixing into a pot. "Well, it's just a theory."

Dinner is chicken and rice with coconut sauce, and is ridiculously good. Brian can barely savor any of it because he keeps trying to figure if Justin's theory makes him feel better or worse. It makes him wonder if maybe Justin is here for him, as well. To interfere in Brian's life the way he has been interfering with Jack's.

Well, presumably interfering. Brian hasn't asked many questions about that, and he doesn't particularly want to. It's easier, being with Justin, when he can forget how they ever crossed paths. It isn't a question of ignoring what Justin _is_ so much as it has to do with ignoring what he's here to _do_.

"He's still pissed, isn’t he?" Brian asks, pushing his plate away. "That I'm gay."

Justin sighs. "He doesn't understand, that's all. People are always a little freaked out by things they don't understand." He wipes his mouth with a napkin primly. "You're dad loves you, Brian. Even if he never says it. Even if he doesn't know _how_ to say it."

Maybe there's proof of that statement lying buried under a pile of Brian's socks, but he doesn't want to think about that. He's not ready. "Look, I know why you're in Pittsburgh, and what you're trying to do, but I don't want to hear about it. I don't want anything else to do with my family."

Justin holds his gaze long enough that Brian starts to wonder if the blond might protest, might try to reason with him or explain why hugging all this shit out would be better for his _soul_ or something. Instead, Justin nods. "Sure," he says. "Back to usual then, right?" 

"Yeah." Brian stands up and clears away the dishes, and then starts systematically flicking the lights off in the loft. "You coming?"

Justin hesitates. "Can I tell you something else?"

Sighing, Brian pauses on the top step of his bedroom and turns around. "Sure, why not. We're on a roll."

There's a shy, hesitant little smile that flashes on Justin's face, and then he's back to looking awkward. As if any moment he's ready to blink out of the loft and away to wherever it is he escapes to. "I don't actually sleep," he blurts. "I mean, angels we don't … we don't get tired."

It makes Brian laugh. He has no idea what he was bracing himself for, but it wasn't that. "I know."

"You do?" Justin actually looks surprised, which only makes Brian laugh more. "Really?"

It's not like Justin makes any sort of effort to mask it. At least, Brian doesn't think he does. Whenever the blond is in the loft he's always doing something: cooking, eating, reading, watching television, bitching. Then Brian goes to sleep with the blond at his side, and when he wakes up there are sketches stashed everywhere. He's been buying paper in bulk since Justin started his little visits.

"I sort of figured," Justin continues. "If you knew you might..."

Brian sticks his tongue in his cheek and rolls his eyes, heading to the bathroom as he continues stripping out of his clothes. There are no lights on except the blue fluorescent bulbs above the bed, and the warm orangey glow emanating from the bathroom as he finishes his nightly ritual of peeing and brushing his teeth.

When he crawls into bed Justin is still standing there, frozen at the foot of the steps, as if he can't quite decide whether to come or go. Pulling the covers up, Brian says, "Justin. Come to bed."

A second later, Justin does.   


_____________________________________________________

  
There are fingers ghosting down his chest.

The touch is so light that Brian almost thinks he's dreaming it, but there's also the shuddery whisper of breath on his face, and the sensation of someone nearby, so close. He reaches out in his sleep and wakes up when his hand closes around a slender wrist.

"I was just…" Justin says, his eyes wide.

Brian can think of a number of witty and sarcastic ways to finish the sentence that Justin has left hanging, but he doesn't. He lies there, his hand around Justin's wrist, his eyes fixed with Justin's wide blue ones and he says nothing at all. The moment could last hours or be over in the blink of an eye. It carries within it all the weight and significance of a lifetime.

Like polarized magnets they start to move toward one another. Barely a hair's breadth between them and Justin licks his lips and lets his eyes close, and then they're kissing, Brian's thoughts screaming different things all at once and then, abruptly silenced as his eyes close, leaving nothing but the quiet and the sensation of Justin pulled close against his body, of their mouthes meeting and their tongues and their breath.

If there were such a thing as absolution, and Brian somehow found himself being worthy of it, he imagines it might feel like this.

"What are we doing?" Justin whispers as Brian presses his lips against Justin's pale neck, trails his tongue down his chest.

Brian pulls his mouth away from the subtle magnetism of Justin's body, leans up and meets the blond's eyes with a smile and a 'You're kidding, right?' quirk to his eyebrows. Justin stares at him, and then lets his head drop back onto the pillows, his eyes squeezing shut so tight that moisture sneaks out of the corners of his eyes, leaves two damp trails across his temples and into the pillows.

"Okay," Justin says. "Okay," and Brian lowers his head back down, lets his mouth touch against smooth skin, lets his hands wander.

He doesn't think he's ever drawn out sex like this. Foreplay for Brian basically consists of a sultry look from across a room, or a casual, 'Want to fuck?'. He takes his pleasure, but Brian isn't selfish and whoever he happens to be with inevitably enjoys themselves. 

For all the drugs he takes, the alcohol he consumes or the ferocity with which he attempts to lose himself in pain management, it has never been like this. Never slow, never absolute, has never made him feel so thoroughly lost and impossibly found at once. Never made him ache straight through to the core of him. Sweet agony.

"Shh, Brian," Justin whispers, his hands coming up to frame Brian's face as Brian pushes into Justin's body. "It's okay." The moisture on Brian's face isn't sweat. Isn't _only_ sweat. He's coming apart and drawing together, and Justin's fingers ghost whisper-soft across his heated skin, Justin's legs enfolding him, the perfect safety net.

Brian splinters apart, pieces coming off of him in chips and chunks and then sloughing off in a cascading avalanche and he shouts, a wordless, echoing cry, every inch of him shuddering.

When he collapses down onto Justin's chest, the blond's arms draping across his back, he's undone. Completely.

"Was it okay?" Justin asks quietly, his breath rustling the hair at Brian's temple.

Brian huffs a laugh, feels the last of his energy leave him as he shifts, turns his head to rest on the blond's chest and says, "Justin. Don't be an idiot," and then he falls asleep.   



	7. Chapter 7

It's not that Justin is avoiding Brian, because he's not.

Well, maybe a little bit.  They had sex. Real, actual sex, which Justin has never had before. As a human _or_ as an angel, thank-you very much. It's a lot to figure out and absorb. Anyway, Justin doesn't think that leaving the loft while Brian is still asleep can technically be considered 'avoiding' him because Justin _usually_ leaves before Brian gets up for work anyway. Really, it's just business as usual. What would have been weird was if he stayed. Right?

He spends the morning with Jack, sitting on the window ledge in the master bedroom because the man is too exhausted to get out of bed. Joan brings up some soup for breakfast but she doesn't linger, and Justin can hear her moving around downstairs. It occurs to him as he's sitting there watching Jack sleep that this is it: time is running out.

It's not 'avoiding' because Justin isn’t going anywhere. He's sitting right where he belongs, where he's needed and expected to be, doing what he should be doing. So Justin sits in the window and waits, keeping vigil. He talks when Jack's eyes flicker open and sweep the room, though Justin isn't entirely certain just what it is he's saying. Whatever it is seems to help, seems to put Jack at ease, take his mind off things. But Justin can't help but notice that Jack doesn't seem to be recovering at all, isn't eating, is interacting less and less. Isn't getting better.

By dinnertime Joan makes the call and the ambulance takes Jack to the hospital, to the ICU where the doctors do what they can and then shift him along, up a floor or two and into a semi-private room where they draw a yellowy-white curtain around his bed. "We're getting him settled now, Mrs. Kinney," a nurse tells Joan. Justin stays, unseen but ever-present. 

When the doctors and nurses finish with Jack and tell Joan she can have a few minutes but visiting hours are over and, "The best thing for him right now is to get some rest, Mrs. Kinney" Justin realizes that Joan hasn't called anyone. Not Claire, not Brian. Not any of her friends, or Jack's. She sits on a chair in the waiting room with her clutch purse in her lap, her hands folded. She waits.

Justin goes to the hospital chapel because he needs a break as much as he needs guidance. It's a cramped little space, dark and peaceful and entirely devoid of people. He walks right up to the second row of pews and collapses down, drapes his arms over the back of the front row and lets his head rest on them. The hospital is cold. Justin thinks he shouldn't notice these things but he does. He feels the chill in the air, a tickling against his senses keeping him sharp and alert. The chapel is warm, like a familiar embrace. His eyes drift halfway shut and he breathes in deep and the world softens just a little bit.

His prayer is as informal as it is incomplete: "I'm so tired." 

He doesn't mean that he's physically exhausted, because he isn't. That would be impossible. He's hollow and spent and worn-thin trying to scramble and find peace for people who have become so fragmented and lost that they can't even remember their original shape. Can't remember what being whole felt like, or looked like, or how to make their way back there. 

Justin can't even tell anymore if he's helping any of the Kinney's. He can't decide whether he should tell Brian that his dad's time is almost gone, or let Joan or Claire call him after Jack has already died. He's terrified of making the wrong decision, terrified that maybe he already _has,_ and he's too _tired_ to figure out what the right call might be.

He's made a mess of things. Indulging himself with Brian, pretending that it was okay to spend so much time there at the loft, pretending that there wasn't _something_ between them. Now he's slept with the man. That's got to be a taboo but again, no lightning. Heaven is in desperate need of a rulebook. One that doesn't contradict itself or speak in riddles. Something plain and concise, so that maybe Justin would stand a chance of figuring out what it is he should be doing.

Rule one: don't sleep with people related to someone you are trying to help. Help. Save, whatever. Justin doesn't even know the right word for it.

Now Jack is dying, and Justin can't face Brian but thinks that maybe he has to. Maybe there's still a chance to make some peace between father and son. "I'm sorry," he whispers to no one in particular. To everyone in general, each of the Kinney family. To one entity in particular, elusive and ambiguous and omniscient. "I'm sorry, and I'm lost and I'm so _tired_."

As is so often the case, though Justin is not actually expecting any sort of answer, he receives one. Just not in any form he would have ever anticipated.

"I've seen you before," Joan Kinney says, standing just inside the chapel doors. "With my husband."

Justin pulls himself together and raises his head, shifting so he can look at her. "Yes, I know Jack."

He watches as she walks forward, genuflects before settling beside him. "My husband is a bastard," she says simply. She sniffs, and then opens her purse, pulling a handkerchief out before re-closing it. "He's the sort of man that makes a person wonder how anyone could love him." She dabs at the corner of her eye, though there is no moisture there, and then sits back in the pew, the handkerchief clenched in a fist. "Now my husband is dying and I came here to pray for his soul," she continues, in that same steady voice. Hollow and iron-strong at once. "But it's as much for me as for him that I'm here."

The silence in the little chapel is heavy, stifled with expectation. Justin has the sense that Joan is waiting for him to say something, anything. Whether to berate her for voicing such thoughts about her husband, speaking ill of a dying man, for swearing in a church or whatever else. As if the silence in itself is what she is trying to evade and she will endure whatever she must to fill the void it makes, so long as she is not left in a space with nothing but her own thoughts for company.

She deserves more than empty platitudes and condolences, however, so he takes a moment before he responds. "Mrs. Kinney…"

"Oh please," she says, waving the hand that holds the handkerchief vaguely. "Call me Joan."

"Joan," he corrects. "I don't think that anyone sets out with who they want to be, as a person, in mind. They make choices, and face challenges, and learn lessons. They make more choices, and sometimes they can't accept this lesson, or that challenge, and that's a choice, too. That's the essence of free will." He licks his lips and takes another breath. "Eventually, they might get to a point where they look back and have regrets but really, the only thing that matters is the attitude you have as you go forward. And that's something else that they decide." He shrugs, still feeling a little frustrated, a little helpless. Like he's not saying any of this right. "I think faith can be an attitude as much as it is a conviction."

She's a rigid figure beside him. Her mouth a firm line, her shoulders thrown back and chin jutted up, defiant. As he watches her hands shift, fingers threading together, the handkerchief a knot of white crumpled between pale hands and red-painted nails. For a moment, Justin wonders if she's heard him at all. 

That moment stretches and then, all at once, Joan's shoulders slump and her back bows, her hands coming up to cover her face as she chokes, and then gasps and then, finally, sobs.

Through all of it, he sits at her side, his arm draped across her back, supporting her weight as she cries. "My husband was a selfish bastard," she says, between gasped breaths. "I wish him peace wherever he goes, but I can't forgive him. I won't _ever_ forgive him…" Justin holds her and keeps silent. He doesn't tell her that he thinks, maybe, she's already started to.

_____________________________________________________

  
Three days. Brian isn't one to obsess but he can't help but feel a bit like he's being avoided. He's at a distinct disadvantage because he doesn't know where Justin goes in his free time when he isn't in the loft, and it isn't like Brian can just hang out at his parent's place and wait for the blond to show up.   
  
Well, maybe he could but he certainly has no wish to. He wants to talk to Justin but there are still lines he won't cross.   


"What's your problem?" Michael demands, glaring at him from across the table they've settled at in Woody's. "You're in a bad mood all the fucking time, lately."

"Leave it, Mikey." Brian downs a few shots and promises himself that he'll stop thinking about persistent blonds who are literally _angels_. 

It's a little nauseating to realize that, holy shit, he had sex with an angel, and he's pretty sure he'd feel pretty damned pleased with himself about that except, well, Justin's _gone_ now and what, exactly, does that mean? Is there some kind of divine retribution for consorting with humans in general or the damned in particular? 

Brian's a little unsteady on his feet as he unlocks the door to his loft. The lights are off with the exception of the bedroom fluorescents, and the first thing he does is flick on the oven light. Anything brighter would give him a headache. He tosses his keys down onto the counter and then feels the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. That familiar sensation that he finally understands.

When he turns around he sees Justin sitting on the sofa, his arms hanging over his knees, his feet perched on the edge of the couch. His back is bowed, his head down. Something about his posture seems sad, almost defeated.

"Where the fuck have you been?" Brian snaps.

Justin looks faded, somehow. Worn in a way that Brian can't place. There is certainly no physical indication, but the warm glow of him is lesser. His expression, when he looks up, is flat. It makes Brian's throat constrict a little. "I need to tell you something."

That sounds only slightly less ominous than, 'We need to talk'. Brian shakes off the last vestiges of inebriation, grabs a bottle of water to keep him alert, and then drops onto the chair opposite Justin. "If I took advantage…"

Justin smiles, then laughs. "No, it's not like that." He licks his lips and his eyes dart away. "You didn't take advantage, Brian. I didn't do anything that I didn't want, okay?" Then, maybe because Brian is having trouble being convinced, he says, "Do you believe me?"

There's no way that Brian can _not_ believe him, not when Justin looks so damned earnest, so open. Brian doesn't understand it, but he has no choice but to believe. If Justin can talk about what they did together with that glint of joy in his eye, then Brian doesn't think that he has anything to fear from whatever it is Justin needs to tell him. He takes a sip of water and leans back. "Well, I already know you're angel. What other secrets are you keeping?"

Justin's posture shifts again, awkward and a little defensive. "You're going to hate me, but I want you to understand why I feel like this is something I should tell you, so just, give me some leeway, alright?"

When Brian nods mutely Justin takes a deep breath. "I used to be human. I had a life and a family. I lived in a house and went to school, and wrote essays and tests and planned my future, just like everybody else. I was going to be an artist," he says, looking a little proud of himself, a little pleased.

"When I figured out I was gay, I came out to my parents pretty much right away. It was who I was, and I knew a lot of people would have trouble with it but I wasn't going to let that stop me from being myself." He tips his head to the side, clearly trapped in remembrance. "My dad beat me up and tried to kick me out of the house but my mom put her foot down. It was rough for everyone, and I'm not sure it would have gotten any easier…"

Brian doesn't voice any of the questions that are circling in his head, but when it becomes clear that Justin has lost the thread of his story, Brian asks, "Why are you telling me this?"

Another slow breath, and Justin finally meets his eyes. "Because my dad did a lot of shitty things to me, Brian. For no other reason than because he couldn't accept one part of me. One part, out of a _million_ different parts of me. He was a great dad until suddenly he just … couldn't be anymore."

Brian doesn't want to hear this lecture. He smiles a tight, thoroughly and pointedly false little smile and cocks his head sarcastically. "But deep down you knew he loved you and one day love will conquer all, and the world will be filled with unicorns and rainbows and everyone will be happy."

"You need to listen to me," Justin says, sharply. "It's not about my dad. He was a _shit_ , Brian. He hurt me, and he hurt the people I loved and I don't know if he ever would have gotten over it or not, but I know that he probably never would have told me that he was sorry for how he acted or what he did, and even if he _did_ apologize to me, that wouldn't be enough to make it better."

"Then what's the point?"

"The _point_ is," Justin continues. "That he was still my dad. No matter what he did, and no matter what choices I made, if I decided to never speak to him again, or if I weathered his attitude, or whatever. He would _still_ be my dad, and that would _still_ mean something. That's something _I_ would have to make peace with."

"My dad is a worthless piece of _shit_ , Justin! He beat me and he hit my mom, and he made everyone in that house fucking _miserable_ , and when I got out, put myself through school and got a job, he ragged on me for thinking I was better than everyone else, with my fancy profession. Then he'd call me up and ask for money. And I would _give it to him_!" Brian snaps. "Because I knew he'd put his fucking alcohol before every other one of his responsibilities, like his own damned house and my mom and the bills."

"I know all of that," Just says. "Believe me, Brian, I _know_. But he's still your dad and…" He looks away, then fixes Brian with a steady gaze and forces himself to continue, "and he's in the hospital. He doesn't have much time left."

It sinks in, slowly. Feels like a shock, even though Brian knew it was coming. Has known, now, for a while. This was inevitable. "I told you not to tell me. I don't want anything else to do with my family."

Justin shifts off the couch, wraps a hand firmly around Brian's arm as he kneels beside Brian's chair. "I know what you told me, and I know why you feel that way. But if you think that maybe tomorrow or a year from now, or _ten_ years from now you'll be able to deal with this, let me tell you that it won't matter. It will be too late. You're dad is here, now. That won't be true ten years from now, or even a year from now, or tomorrow."  He shrugs, looks a little helpless and a lot worried as he adds, "Maybe you're not ready to deal with this right now, or ever. That's fine, it really is. Do whatever you need. But I needed to tell you, Brian, because this is a choice you deserve to make for yourself."

_____________________________________________________

  
Brian spends the better part of an hour slumped in his chair, his head resting on Justin's shoulder, telling himself that his answer is going to be 'no' right up until somehow he finds himself saying, "Okay."   


Justin takes the keys out of his hand and refuses to be talked out of driving, not that Brian puts much effort into his protests. He falls silent the moment he realizes the only reason he's arguing is to distract himself from where he's going. He hates hospitals, really and truly hates them. Nothing good ever happens in a hospital, not in his experience. He doesn't want to see his dad, doesn't want these memories at all, would rather hide in his bed with a bottle of Beam and a trick or two. Three tricks would be ideal, really. He doesn't want to go. Not at all. But he thinks, maybe he has to.

So Brian lets Justin drive, follows the blond into the hospital, into the elevator and down the hall until Justin comes to an abrupt halt outside of a closed door, standing in front of Brian's mother who is, he realizes suddenly, gripping Justin's forearm like it's a lifeline. There's a brief flash of a brittle smile that Brian recognizes as gratitude, and then Joan looks at him, stern and inscrutable again. "Brian. It's good of you to come. The doctors don't think your father has much time left."

He nods, wonders if he has wandered into another dimension. "Mom," then his eyes shift around and he realizes he can't see his sister anywhere. "Where's Claire?"

"She's with the boys. There was no one to watch them." Brian thinks that Claire's kids can probably take care of themselves for a few hours, but he doesn't say anything. Joan gestures to the door, "You should sit with him. I need some time."

He stands in the middle of the hallway watching his mother disappear down the hall. "I'll wait out here," Justin says, but Brian's fingers snag the edge of the blond's sleeve and tug him forward as he moves into the room.

Jack is grey and very still, a great big gasping machine squatting to the left of his bed, breathing for him. He's sleeping, and Brian is almost grateful. It gives him the chance to get his bearings, to let this sink in the way it just hasn't yet. He wonders when it will start feeling real. Hopes it happens sooner rather than later.

"Claire didn't come," he says, and doesn't realize he's asking a question until Justin says, "You said 'yes'. She said 'no'." Brian doesn't know how to feel about that so he stays silent, walks to his dad's bedside and concentrates on breathing. After a while, he manages to sit down.

Joan doesn't come back so Brian stays, sitting at the side of his father's bed. He is aware that Justin drifts in and out of the room, always seeming to know when Brian can't bear being alone in the gasping silence for another second. Nurses come and fiddle with machines, and tubes. At one point a doctor says, "It won't be long now." 

Sometimes Brian talks, because he knows his dad can't hear, won't be able to answer. Mostly he sits in silence. He is aware that this is a vigil. He refuses to think of what might happen when this vigil has ended, prefers to sit there and feel as if this right here is interminable, this right here is what the rest of his life will be: sitting, keeping vigil.

Memories creep by, things he didn't even know he remembers somehow resurfacing. Wave after wave of recollection, and it feels like he's a castle gate under bombardment. The memories aren't all happy but there's happy moments tucked between the bad, and those hurt the most. He's wished his old man dead often enough, now that the moment has arrived it feels too soon. He wishes things were different, but that's a familiar wish and he knows better than to expect it might ever be granted.

Justin knocks lightly on the door, comes in bearing a cup of hot coffee that doesn't taste like it came from anywhere inside the hospital. Brian sips it gratefully and doesn't ask questions. "You're mom's in the chapel," Justin says. "Are you okay in here? She'll come if you need a break." Brian shakes his head, and Justin nods and drifts out of the room again.

Brian doesn't know how long he's been sitting there when Jack's eyes crack open. He holds his breath, feels almost like he's a little kid again, caught ripping tiny tears into the presents beneath the tree in an effort to determine what he's getting for Christmas. After a moment, Jack's shifting gaze settles and focuses.  "Sonnyboy," he says, the words barely a sound at all, resembling shaped air more than anything; a sigh.

"Hey, pop."

Jack's eyes close. "Sonnyboy." There's a tear tracking down the side of Jack's cheek and Brian stands up because there's something in the way his dad said it, something in the moment, in the air of the room, just _something_ that lets him know what's happening.

Then the machines echo a long resounding beep and people pour into the room. Brian backs up, again and again and then further still until he's at the door, and then out in the hallway. Keeps moving until he can't anymore, until Justin wraps him in his arms and says, "Breathe. Just breathe, Brian." Brian holds on because he doesn't want to let anything else go. Doesn't want to lose anything else.

He doesn't need a doctor to tell him that Jack Kinney is gone. "I have to tell my mom."

Justin catches hold of him again. "Just wait a second," he says. "Give yourself another minute."

"Is he okay?" Brian asks, hating that he cares, hating that he sounds so lost. He's twenty-nine, not a lost little kid. Not a little boy still looking up to his dad, hoping for more than he'll ever get.

"Yes," Justin says with quiet confidence. "Yes, he's okay, Brian." He reaches up, his hands cupping Brian's face, forcing Brian to meet his gaze. "Hey, I know that you're not going to believe me for a while, but I have to tell you this, okay? I need you to listen."

It makes Brian smile. He has learned to trust Justin. "Alright, I'm listening."

Justin mirrors the smile but there's something bittersweet lurking in the blue of his eyes. "It's going to be okay, Brian. No matter what happens, or however it feels, you're going to be okay."

The warm glow that had been missing before when Justin had come to the loft is back around him now. It makes his eyes spark like sunlight dancing across ocean waves. "You're right," Brian says. "I don't believe you."

Justin laughs, and then presses a kiss to Brian's lips. "That's because you're stubborn. You _know_ I'm always right. Eventually this'll sink into your stubborn head."

Brian smirks, steals another kiss just because he can, tries to absorb a little of Justin's strength for himself. "I'll go tell her now."

Stepping back, Justin drops his hand to Brian's forearm and holds on as he starts to move away, his blue eyes fixed with such intensity onto Brian's own that it feels like there's something Brian just isn't understanding. Then Justin squeezes his arm gently and lets him go.

When Brian comes out of the chapel with his mother, Justin isn't waiting in the hallway.  There's a white feather lying on the corner of Jack's bed. It shifts free from its precarious rest as Joan moves into the room to stand by her husband's body. Brian watches the feather as it floats back down to earth. He catches it before it drifts away.


	8. Chapter 8

Joan does not make lists. She doesn't need them. What has to be done is always quite plain to her and she moves through each thing systematically and methodically. Her memory isn't such that she ever forgets or loses track. 

She hits the ground running. The moment she walks through her own front door she takes one look around and then picks up the phone. The Goodwill isn’t answering. 

Cursing, she hangs up and then calls back a minute later. The same message plays. This time she actually listens to it, glancing at the clock in irritation only to realize that, of course, they're not open yet. Nor should they be.

Briefly, Joan contemplates going to bed but she's not tired and really, she'd prefer to wash the sheets first. Jack had spent the majority of his last few days in that bed. It doesn't feel like a space for the living anymore.

Pulling open the curtains in the master bedroom she finds herself once again surprised by the lack of sunlight, is reminded that it is still very early morning, that there is no reason why it should be bright. She opens the window, lets the bracing winter air spill in and chase away the stale scent hanging in the room. She strips the bed and the pillows and empties the laundry hamper, and then stuffs everything haphazardly into the wash, pouring in the detergent. It takes all of ten minutes and then she's back in the front hall. 

She can't make any arrangements because everywhere is closed. Jack boxed most everything up already, trying to make things easier she supposes, though standing in her hallway with nothing to do, she certainly isn't going to thank him for it. Not that she can, now…

Joan pours herself a glass of gin, takes a moment and then realizes that she no longer has to hide her liquor behind the cereal boxes. If she wants, she can put it in the liquor cabinet where it has always belonged and not have to worry that it will be gone the next time she goes to get a glass.  There is no one here to drink it but her.

She marches her bottle of gin to the cabinet, sets it proudly down on the shelf and then locks the door. Through the glass of the cabinet she sees the tall clear bottle of gin surrounded by the murky, stout brown bottles of whiskey. It looks as if the gin is about to be ambushed. 

She stands there staring for a moment, and then hurriedly unlocks the cabinet again, saving the gin from an undoubtedly grizzly fate and carrying it to the coffee table, where she places it beside her glass.

She picks up her phone again. Dials. "Claire," she says. Joan knows it is a mistake to call the moment Claire takes a long shuddery breath and says, "Mommy?" but by then it's too late.

She manages to cut the call off after twenty minutes.  Claire is still sobbing but Joan can't sit there and listen anymore. "I thought you should know," she says, followed by an abrupt farewell. She hangs up.

Sitting back on the couch, she sips her gin and watches the light creep into the room.

_____________________________________________________

  
The loft feels empty. Uninhabited, abandoned.   
  
The only thing missing is Justin and Brian thinks that the blond has truly gone, now. He suspects that he should feel something about that: disappointed, bereft. Brian doesn't feel a thing.   


At the hospital he had felt regret, turmoil, loss.  He'd waited outside while his mom spent some time in the with his dad, though why she wanted to sit beside a corpse was something he didn't understand. Maybe she was in there trying to avoid the paperwork. Still, she seemed a little more settled when she had come out, not that she had said anything. 

He'd driven her home and she had hesitated, sitting in the front passenger seat of his Jeep with the door open. "There is a lot that needs to be arranged."

Brian had nodded. "I'll take care of it." He has no idea why he said that.

It's early morning and there isn't much light filtering through the loft windows. Inside, the oven light has been left on, the blue fluorescents above the bed. He looks at his watch and realizes that yes, a few hours ago he'd been drinking at Woody's, wondering where Justin was. Thinking that the blond was likely avoiding him, that they had things they should probably talk about.

He's tired. Exhausted bone-deep, utterly spent, but when he climbs the steps to his bedroom he looks at his bed and all he can think about is Justin lying in it, his wings draped across the sheets, or sitting up and sketching, or dropping his head back into the pillows and saying "Okay" and that deep, surprised gasping sound he made when Brian had pushed into his body.

Abruptly, Brian turns and walks back down the steps. He pours himself a glass of Beam and thinks about the things that have to be done. Tries to decide what order he should set about doing it. For all that his mother seems to be expecting him to take care of things, she hasn't told him what exactly he should be doing. He doesn't even know if his dad wanted to be buried or cremated.

A part of him tries to offer justification: Jack _just_ died. It doesn't seem like a good enough excuse. After all, these things _need_ to be done. Putting it off doesn't accomplish anything. He waits until a suitable hour and then phones into work, explains the situation. The sympathy and condolences are entirely unwanted. It makes him feel as if he is somehow lacking, makes him feel guilty, like he should feel more upset than he is. 

Brian is perfectly calm, he's not hurt or grieving, he's not distraught. He accepts the time-off gratefully, though. He has no idea what timetable his mother has in mind for this.

The next thing that occurs to him is that someone should probably let Claire know. After he ends the call with work, though, he realizes that his phone somehow got switched to silent, and he missed a few calls. When he checks the numbers of the missed calls they're all from his sister. There's a voice message from Claire that he doesn't listen to. One glance at the time the message was left makes him certain that Joan must have taken care of that particular notification.

Closing his phone, Brian has a hot shower, brushes his teeth, and then changes clothes. He shaves, staring at his reflection in the mirror, the circles under his eyes, something haunted in his expression that no false smile can mask. It's bone deep. Maybe a permanent part of him now. 

When he's done he empties a miscellany of his fridge contents into his blender, takes one sip of the concoction and calls it breakfast, then he grabs his keys and heads out. Halfway to his mother's house, formerly his parents' house, Brian realizes that he probably could have used a coffee. That maybe he shouldn't be behind a wheel right now, but he's not worried enough to pull over.

He parks the Jeep in the driveway, takes a moment to sort through what he needs from the house in his head, the questions he needs his mother to answer. He promises himself he will be in and then out, as quickly as possible. 

Joan answers the door with a cagey look, like she expects a vacuum salesman or a bunch of girl scouts to try and trap her into a purchase. Catch her when she's off-guard. Not that Brian's mother is _ever_ off her guard. "Brian," she says, holding open the door and stepping back. "I've been trying to think of what passages to have the priest read, at the service."

Brian wasn't sure what to expect, had thought he was prepared for anything, but he is having trouble understanding his mother's statement. He says as much to her. "Well," she huffs, like it should be perfectly clear. " _Obviously_ there will be a service. Your father might have skipped more Sunday masses than not, but he was Catholic. Is there a passage you want the priest to read?"

He stands there and tries to figure out if his mother is actually serious. When he realizes that she _is_ , he shakes his head. "I don't _care_ , mom."

She rolls her eyes. Apparently his response hasn’t surprised her in the slightest. "Well, why are you here?"

"I need pop's papers. Birth certificate, all of that. I've been in touch with the hospital already, the funeral home is going to pick him up today, but I need to know if you want him buried or cremated. I need to know what to tell them."

She frowns, like this hasn't occurred to her. "Buried. Don't you think?"

Brian really doesn't care, one way or another. Joan tells him where to find the paperwork he needs, and he goes to collect it. While he's rummaging through his father's desk his mother wanders in with a mug of coffee that she sets down for him. "I've been taking care of the notifications where I can," she says. "But it occurs to me that he should have an obituary. In the newspaper."

There is a small stack of papers that Brian is accumulating, papers he knows he will need, and some that he thinks he _might_ need. He'd rather take everything now so he won't have to come back. "Probably."

"I've tried to come up with something…" 

"I'll do it." He appropriates a folder filled with old receipts and fills it with the papers he needs and anything else he thinks might be useful. He tries not to think about how apparently his mother has been as eager to get things moving as he has been. Brian doesn't appreciate the similarity.

He sits at the kitchen table and writes his father's obituary with a ballpoint pen on a piece of lined paper, with his mom checking over his shoulder periodically as she prepares something for lunch.  It's like high school all over again. 

"Don't make it so long," she says, eying the paper. "Be concise."

"I'm summarizing the man's life, mom," he says. She raises her eyebrows in that way that perfectly and succinctly asks, 'and your point is?'

When Brian asks if she wants to take things slow, have some time for all of this to sink in a bit before they have the funeral, Joan shakes her head. "I don't like the idea of him just lying around like that, waiting to be buried."

As much as Brian endeavors to avoid his mother and her home, he finds himself there more often than not. She takes care of notifications, with the exception of Jack's friends: "They're foul-mouthed old goats and I won't talk to them. It would be preferable if they avoided the funeral altogether." She makes arrangements with the priest and the church, selects the readings and the psalms to be sung during the service.

In turn, Brian phones every one of his dad's foul-mouthed friends; writes the obituary and sends it out, makes arrangements with the funeral parlor and the cemetery; selects the suit in which his father will be buried. In the beginning, he tries consulting Claire but she invariably breaks down over the phone, inconsolable. Brian stops trying. 

"You're not going to get anything else out of her," Joan says. "I've already tried."

"Yeah, well. She isn't the only one who lost a father," he says, though he isn't sure why. He's not grieving. He doesn't really feel a loss. Mostly he's pissed at the unfairness: that his sister can just throw up her hands and sob and leave _everything_ to him.

Joan pats his shoulder, and then pours him a glass of gin. Her expression is flat, her eyes sharp. "Yes. Well. We're all very distraught."  For some reason this makes Brian snicker into his glass.  He's not certain, but he thinks he might see his mom actually crack a smile.

_____________________________________________________

  
On the morning of Jack's funeral, Joan showers and puts on her make-up. She dresses and goes downstairs and forgoes breakfast in favor of walking through the main floor of her home, which has already been re-arranged in preparation for the reception.   


If it were left to her, there would be no reception. Nor would there be a visitation before the service. She is confident that, in her new black dress, she can stand very still and look appropriately somber during the church service, but she does not wish to speak to anyone and can't decide which will be worse: receiving condolences from people who barely knew Jack or felt fondly about him, or receiving condolences from people who were perfectly aware what a piece of work the man was.  She doesn't want to be judged by anyone. She doesn't want her _family_ to be judged. She wants everything to be perfect, because maybe that will shut everyone up. She wants there to be lots of food, because then maybe no one will start _talking_.

Briefly, she considers having Brian tell the guests that in her grief, she has taken a temporary vow of silence. It seems a little extreme so instead she pours herself a glass of bourbon. "Mother would be so proud," she says to the empty room, to the buffet table loaded with food. Everything is perfect.

The Funeral parlor feels a bit like a hotel, or a new home before it is fully settled: pristine wood floors, wide hallways, substanceless artwork of trees and lakes. The employees are dressed in crisp dark clothes, looking well pressed and vaguely attractive, sympathetic and pleasant at once, and they are more than happy to direct her to the large room where Jack is waiting.

Joan had gone with Brian to select the coffin. "I don't _care_ what the man is buried in," she had said, meaning at once the coffin and the suit. It didn't matter. The suit and the coffin both would decompose. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Brian had looked at her blandly, and she had relented. The casket would, of course, be viewed and judged, just like everything else. They had selected a dark, shining black coffin with white silk. "It will be a closed casket visitation," she declared. "Anything else is just macabre." 

Inside the room, Claire is already holding court. She and the boys have made large poster boards cluttered with photographs: Jack and the family at Christmas, Jack as a little boy, Jack and his parents. Jack and his baby daughter. Jack, Jack, Jack.  "How thoughtful," Joan says. Claire gives her a hug, which Joan returns, but then Claire heaves a sob and collapses a little, and Joan pushes her back. "Please. Pull yourself together."

She goes up to the coffin and stands there, numb. While she is perfectly aware that this is a moment where she should say her final good-byes, Joan cannot think of a single thing to say. Instead, she begins working her way through the rosary.  She is still praying when she settles down onto one of the wingback chairs.

People begin to stream in, the room filling up with faces. Brian's friend, Michael, brings her a cup of tea. He has put too much sugar into it. She holds it, relieved that it gives her hands something to do. She continues to recite the rosary. 

People come and offer sympathy; some sit down in the chair across from her and share their memories of her husband before moving along. A few try and engage her in conversation, and are soon discouraged. Not even forty minutes in, Claire collapses into a chair and sobs uncontrollably. "What am I going to do?" she asks no one in particular. "Daddy, oh daddy!" 

From across the room, Brian turns and looks at her.  Joan raises her cup to her lips and takes a long sip.

_____________________________________________________

  
The decision to give Jack a Catholic burial is just about the best idea Brian thinks his mother has ever had. For one thing, it neatly cuts out the opportunity for a lot of people to stand at a podium and blubber on about his dad but still, by the time they make it to the cemetery he is worn thin.   
  
For one thing, Claire hasn't stopped crying.   


Crowded around the coffin, snow just starting to fall around them, Brian amuses himself by watching his mother shoot irritated glances at his sister, who tries unsuccessfully to stifle her sobs. The atmosphere is oppressive: a swarm of black-clad figures, most of who are crying though none as loudly as Claire. Their small huddle is the only indication of life. Pressing, pressing, pressing, close around the rectangular slice in the earth.

Everything is black and white, and stifling. Brian breaks away, fumbling in his pocket until he finds the tissue inside which he has tucked a joint: sweet salvation.

He lights it as he picks up his pace, cutting away from the group, uncaring if his mother is frowning disapprovingly at his back, or if people are scandalized by his funeral etiquette. Fuck them. It's his dad's funeral; he can act however he damned well pleases.

"Hey," Michael says, catching up to him. He's tentative. He's been tentative and _oozing_ sympathy since Brian told him that Jack was dead. It's been driving Brian slowly up the wall, but he appreciates that Michael is there, that _all_ of his friends are there, so he doesn’t mention it. 

"Hey, Mikey," he says, dismissive, only to be pulled to an abrupt halt by the hand that Michael is gripping his shoulder with. Those big brown kicked-puppy eyes are looking up at him. So fucking earnest, like Michael really _understands_.

Bullshit. _No one_ understands.  "Want some?" Brian pulls the joint from his mouth and holds it out.

"No." Michael looks disapproving but Brian is beyond caring. He takes another draw and worries in a generalized sort of way about how numb he's been feeling. Perfectly, exquisitely numb. He considers asking Michael if that's normal, if it's shock or something, but Brian figures that Michael will just worry and smother him more, and there's only so much of well-intentioned smothering that Brian can take.

It's the name that catches him at first because consciously or not, that name has been circling in his head consistently for _days_ now. 'Justin'. He stares at that name, carved deep into the stone marker. For the first time Brian doesn't feel frozen.

But then his eyes drift down, find the little oval photograph inset at the heart of the marker: brilliant, wide smile, bright eyes.  It's not just some person who happened to be named Justin. It's actually Justin's grave. An almost life-sized stone angel collapsed forward over the dark-onyx marker, sitting beneath the naked, outstretched branches of a snow-covered tree.

Brian pulls the joint from between his lips, lets it drop into the snow.

"Brian," Michael asks, his voice oddly distant, his tone urgent. "What? What is it?"

Brian worries that he might actually be sick in the cemetery. Might just curl over and vomit where he stands because he is suddenly nauseous. He remembers how Justin looked, standing in the hospital hallway, balanced on tiptoe so he could reach up and touch Brian's cheek: "It's going to be okay, Brian. No matter what happens, or how it feels. You're going to be okay."

Michael is talking but he's a thousand miles away. Brian hadn't believed Justin then, but he thinks maybe he does now. Maybe everything _will_ be okay. Finally, _finally_ it's all sinking in, everything he's done in the past few days, weeks. He's faced some of his deepest fears, and he's still here. He made it. It floods in like sweet salvation, so perfect and shiny and overflowing with possibility and fucking _optimism_. 

Then, just as quickly, it floods right out of him. Because what's the point? Ultimately, everything's all the same, isn't it? He's still alone.

_____________________________________________________

  
Claire hasn't been able to catch her breath.   
  
For a brief moment when she woke up, she thought she might make it through the day. She gets the boys out of bed, feeds them, and then chases them back up the stairs: "Hurry up. We can't be late!"   
  
She makes it into her room and has a shower, and then loses track of everything.    


Has she already put on makeup? No, she doesn't think she did, but when she goes over to the vanity her compact is open and maybe she just left it in disarray, or maybe she already put on her makeup. Glancing into the mirror she thinks: no, obviously no makeup. 

But first, earrings. She picks a pair because they were her dad's favorite, starts crying as she puts them in, and has to rifle around to find a small packet of tissues. Good idea. She tucks some tissues into her purse.

Is she dressed? Her dress is lying on the bed. She pulls it on, and then spends a half hour trying to decide between two pairs of black pumps. She's put her make-up on, right? Is she forgetting anything?

"Mom, keys," John says, rolling his eyes at her. 

She is pulling into the driveway of the funeral home when she realizes that she _hasn't_ put on any makeup. "We have to go back home," she says. "I forgot something."

John scowls and rolls his eyes. "Jesus, mom. What happened to not being late?" 

"You're right. Never mind."

At the parlor, people come up and complement her on the boards she made, all the photographs. Everyone talks to her about when she was little, the last time they'd seen her, or seen her boys. How sorry they were to hear about the divorce. How is she doing?

Claire is not doing well. Obviously. She is, in point of fact, at completely loose ends.

This is her father's _funeral_. No one is talking about Jack. The most she gets is a man she vaguely recognizes as one of her dad's bowling teammates shaking his head and saying, "He was a mean old bear. I'm gonna miss that bastard."

Claire clears her throat pointedly. "He was my _father_ ," she says, and then goes and sits down and cries because, Christ, is she the only one here who is sad?

"Pull yourself together, Claire," her mother says at one point. "You're making a spectacle of yourself."

"What am I gonna do, mom? I'm so sad," Claire says. Joan shakes her head and walks away.

During the church service everyone is silent, and the more Claire listens to the Bible verses, the more she feels at sea. By the time she pulls up into the driveway of her parents' home for the reception, she's more numb than anything, but she can't stop crying.

"Christ," Brian says when he sees her. He hands her a Kleenex and a bottle of water. "Haven't you dehydrated yet?" He quirks an eyebrow. "You know dad would shit himself if he saw you carrying on like this."

"I know." It only makes her cry harder. "I can't stop."

Everyone is standing in her parents' home, piling food onto plates and sipping strong coffee and drifting around like nebulous black clouds and _no one_ is talking about Jack Kinney. _No one_ seems to care. It makes her feel terrified because during the church service while she'd been trying to listen to the verses, all Claire could really hear were all the things her father used to shout at her. Every time he ever raised his voice to her became a rushing monologue, strung together and playing like a bad soundtrack in her mind. She can't remember anything good. She _knows_ it wasn't _all_ bad, but she can't _remember._

"I thought," she says, stepping forward. "I thought it would be nice if we could all share some memories of daddy…" She thinks she should probably start out since this is her idea, but she can't think of something appropriate.

Nobody has anything to say.

_____________________________________________________

  
Brian isn't stoned enough for this shit.   
  
He has a back-up, emergency joint in the Jeep, which he retrieves and then lights, sitting on the back-steps of the house. Michael's retarded revisionist history of the Great Bowled Strike Triumph had made Claire frown, looking mildly confused like even _she_ could smell bullshit. It made Joan snort into her glass, "What a lovely _story_ Michael."   


It never fails to amuse Brian how much his mom just can't stand Michael Novotny. Debbie fucking _terrifies_ his mom, which is also hilarious. "I'll be thinking of you, honey," Debbie had said. "But for your mother's sake, I probably shouldn't go to the funeral."

"There you are," Michael says, poking his head outside. "You know, people have started to head out."

Fucking _finally_.  Brian stands up and stretches, follows Michael inside to where the gang has clustered, anxiously awaiting his return so they can make their good-byes and escape. Slowly, everyone begins to drift out the front door. Michael helps tidy some of the mess away before he, too, makes an exit.

"Leave the rest of it," Joan says airily. 

"I'll take these in the Jeep, return them to the caterers on my way back," Brian says, indicating the tables and other supplies they had rented especially for the reception.

"Suit yourself."

"Mom," Claire says, her voice hoarse. She's slumped in a chair in the living room. "I can't remember daddy."

Joan rolls her eyes. "Oh, Claire. The man's been dead less than a week."

Claire shakes her head. "No. I can't remember the good things." Brian would scoff, but suddenly he feels regressed a solid decade or more. He almost wants to sit at his big sister's feet and cling to her leg. "There were good things, weren't there?"

Joan's chin raises up, her eyes darkening as her mouth straightens out. Tightens. Brian knows the look well. Braces himself for something cold and cutting. "You and your father used to build forts in the living room," she says. "You too, Brian, when you were old enough." Joan shifts, one arm wrapping around her chest, the other bent upward, her hand resting on the side of her neck. She looks far away, lost in memory. 

"I'd come home from picking up groceries and there would be blankets draped everywhere and the curtains would be closed, and I could see a flashlight on under there and hear you all laughing. Sometimes he would read to you." She catches herself, shakes her head, waves her hand, dismissive. "I don't know what you'd do in there all day, I didn't stay and listen. But I'd hear you all laughing. Right up until dinner, when I had to call and tell you take the fort down."

Brian has absolutely no memory of building forts with his dad. Apparently, neither does Claire, but their mother does and that means that it must have happened. Brian isn't sure how he feels about that.

"I'm sorry I didn't help more," Claire says. "With all of this."

Joan raises her eyebrows, says, "Well," and waves her hand again before returning it to the side of her throat. Brian waits, watches, and a second later, the hand moves, picks up the ever-present gold crucifix and slides it, back and forth, along the chain. Then Joan turns and heads back into the kitchen.

_____________________________________________________

  
Raw. That's how Brian feels over the next few days. Like every barrier he ever had has been torn down, like his skin has sloughed off and is growing again, brand new. Every sensation, every scent, every emotion is tangible like he can't remember it ever being before.   
  
It's overwhelming.   
  
"I guess your mission was a success, Sunshine," he whispers into the wind.   


He's been handed a fresh start. A chance to heal, a chance to rebuild and grow however he wants, jettisoning the agony of the past and stepping forward. A brave new world.

The only problem is, Brian's entering that world on his own. The press of expectation is almost suffocating. Emmett and Ted perpetually making reference to age and impotence because Brian has been finding less and less consolation in the backroom of Babylon. Debbie's pleased little chuckles, followed by the inevitable defense as Michael says, "Leave him alone. He's grieving." Brian _is_ grieving he realizes, but not for his old man.

Finding his way back to the grave isn't easy considering he didn't know where he was going when he stumbled on it in the first place. It's the tree that finally lets him know that he's in the right place. It's the collapsed stone angel that brings him to a halt.

The marker reads: "In loving memory of Justin Taylor, beloved son, loving brother. Artist." And, beneath that, "The angels weep." It makes him wonder if any angels actually did weep when Justin died. Makes him wonder about the life Justin had, and about how it must have been afterward, waking up an angel. How does that work, exactly? 

Really, Brian just wonders if there's a chance he'll see the blond again because there's a hollowness inside him that is almost a breathing thing. He worries it might be a permanent fixture, now. Making a home there in his chest.

He's brought flowers because that's what you're supposed to do when you visit a grave: bring something. Brian has brought six white roses and one red, he vaguely recalls reading a rhyme about that somewhere.

_ …one for sorrow…Seven for a secret never to be told… _

He doesn't know what he's doing, standing here. It feels like maybe he's trying to lay something to rest, but whatever that might be he doesn't have the words. It's cold, there's snow covering most of the ground and, collapsed forward a little but still resting in the little hollow made by the stone angel's left wing is a small plastic figurine of Gonzo the Great, complete with red cape and helmet and hooked nose.

It makes Brian pause, glancing back down to the words on the marker and recalculating the dates. It feels a bit like a cold-shock but he doesn't know why. Justin seemed timeless but he'd made it clear that hadn’t always been the case. That he'd been alive, been _human_ once, and that meant he had dates just like anyone else. Birth date, death date. An entire life framed. 

As Brian tries to integrate this new information he becomes aware of a figure making its way through the tombstones. Her presence makes him feel exposed; vulnerable in a way that gives him pause. He's not doing anything wrong, but it almost feels as if he's been caught-out.  There's really no reason for him to be here because Justin's been gone for a long time. He's not even dead, not really. He's something else. Brian turns, starts walking away, cutting through the markers toward the narrow roadway.

"Excuse me," the woman says. There's no one else nearby. She can only be addressing him and so he turns, expecting to be asked for directions, or maybe for a helping hand.

She's timeworn. Wrinkles marring her face, laugh lines and smile lines etched around her eyes and her mouth. Thin, but there's nothing frail or tired about her. She gives the impression of iron wrapped in steel, though that might have something to do with her greying hair, pulled back in a loose bun. She's standing perfectly straight, a long dark purple coat over her shoulders, and bright purple leather gloves over her hands. Brian notes, his heartbeat stuttering, that she is pointing to the flowers he's just placed on Justin's grave. "Excuse me," she repeats. "Did you…?"

Licking his lips, Brian says, "Yeah."

"You knew him?" There's a kind of hopeful disbelief in her voice. Like she knows it's impossible that he ever knew the man whose grave he has just placed flowers on, but she still wants to believe it. She wants to live in that possibility. Someone else who knew Justin Taylor. Her desire to talk is almost painfully apparent. Still mourning, after all these years. Apparently, Justin just has that effect on people. "He was my brother." 

It feels like an answer to a question Brian didn't realize he'd ever actually given voice. Apparently, Justin is still working his magic, bringing unlikely souls together. Giving Brian what he needs, whether Brian realizes it or not. He finds himself coming to a stop beside her. "Brian Kinney," he offers.

She smiles. "Molly Taylor." Reaching forward, she runs a gloved fingertip over the little plastic Gonzo, setting it upright again. Whether in response to Brian's gaze or her own introspection, she says, "He used to sing that song to me, from the _Muppet Movie_. You know, 'I'm Going to Go Back There Someday'?"

Brian tries to picture it and finds himself smiling. "He struck me more as a Miss Piggy than a Gonzo."

Molly's laugh is bright and careless. She tucks a hand into her pocket and pulls out a plastic figure of Miss Piggy, and then raises her eyebrows. "Oh believe me, he had his Miss Piggy moments, but I was more the opinionated tyrant. He was the one who always knew where he was going, was always willing to give anything a try, no matter how terrifying or ridiculous."

"A true blue weirdo."

She tips her head back and laughs. "So you _did_ know him," she says, pleased. 

Maybe it's the way she says it, like she still doesn't fully believe it, or like she hopes it might be true but fears to ask, Brian finds himself giving voice to one of the questions he has been stifling since the moment he found out Justin had been human. "How did he die?"

Molly Taylor glances over at him briefly, then away. She places the Miss Piggy beside the Gonzo and then she steps back, clearing her throat, like she's trying to dislodge something that might be stuck there. "It's cold," she says. "Would you like to get a cup of coffee?"

There's a coffee shop just across the street from the cemetery, and they make the walk in silence. Brian buys them coffees as Molly settles into a booth at the front of the shop, right by the large picture window. When he joins her at the table she's in the process of working her gloves off her hands.

"My brother was murdered," she says abruptly. Like it's taken her this long to work-up the courage to say it, and she has to blurt it out before that courage leaves her again. It isn't what Brian was expecting. Certainly it's not what he had been hoping to hear. Granted, he had figured that since Justin was young, his death was likely violent in some way: incurable disease, or car crash maybe, but not … "It was a hate crime," Molly continues, relentless. "Not that it was treated as such…"

Brian nods to himself. "Because he was gay?"

She sighs, more relief than disappointment or sadness. "Yes," she says, a little emphatically. "It was a very different time. Back then."

She grits her teeth, her jaw flexing, and then the fight goes out of her, and she leans back in her chair, shaking her head. "Before he died, all our parents did was fight. My dad wanted to forget Justin's sexuality, wanted Justin to settle down, act straight, and go to business school, and my mom wanted Justin to do what he wanted, which was go to art school. They argued all the time, and Justin and I were pretty sure they were headed for a divorce."

Her smile turns bittersweet. "After he died, though, it was like my dad forgot that Justin ever came out, or sent a rejection letter to Dartmouth. I'd never seen my father cry, but that's all he could do for a while and then, after the funeral, my parents just never talked about Justin anymore. Like I had always been their only child."

Molly releases a whooshing exhalation, rolling her eyes as she shakes her head, sheepish. "Clearly, I still have unresolved anger-issues about the entire thing."

"It's difficult to let someone like that go." Brian has no idea why he says it; he's off-balance and not thinking straight. 

The sharp, knowing look Molly shoots at him is so much like her brother's that Brian almost chokes on the coffee he's drinking. "It is," she says. "Almost impossible." 

She leans forward a little. "You know, they say it's normal just after you lose someone to feel like they're still around, but I still get that sensation sometimes. Like he's right there beside me, in the periphery of my vision." Her smile is a little self-mocking, like she's perfectly aware of how crazy she sounds but likewise, just doesn't care.  "I always try not to look right away because of course, he's never there. But I invariably end up giving-in," her eyes cut sharply to the right, toward the window and the street, like she might actually catch a glimpse if she just moves fast enough. 

She smiles ruefully, and then sets her empty mug down and reaches for her gloves. Her movements are smooth and precise, elegant and demure. Standing, Molly says, "I'm not a religious woman, Mister Kinney, but I believe that my brother checks in on me sometimes, just to see if I'm okay." She shifts her purple gloves to her left hand and drops the right one down onto his shoulder, squeezing once, firmly. "Maybe he'll do the same for you."

_____________________________________________________

  
Justin doesn't remember being human. Not really.   


He has memories of his life: his mom and dad, his sister. First time at a fair, first kiss, first disappointment. Maybe he has more memories of his life than he would have if he were still mortal, or maybe they're clearer, he isn't quite certain. It doesn't matter. What _does_ matter are the things he _can't_ remember: the absolute high he got when he opened his acceptance letter to PIFA. The sheer pride and terror because he knew his dad wouldn't be happy, but Justin had spent so much of the last year just _wanting_ this that he couldn't bring himself to care. How utterly miserable he'd been for those two weeks when he and his best friend, Daphne, weren't talking to each other. It had felt like the end of the world.

For Justin, sex with Brian had been nice. Pleasant, enjoyable.

For Brian, it had looked earth shattering. Amazing, incredible. Justin can't remember feeling anything that strongly anymore. Wonders what it would be like to love something absolutely, loathe it utterly, or yearn for it constantly. Time doesn't matter when you're an angel but it feels like he's been doing this forever; even if the others like him smile fondly and call him young. 

Justin likes this after-life. He's content and so full with this beautiful, unnamable thing that it pours out of him, sometimes. He has wings and he can _fly_ and he can _help_ people and that makes him happy. Every time he comes down to earth to assist someone they're so full of hurt and fear that he can't help but love them, if only because they hate themselves so thoroughly and Justin firmly believes _everyone_ deserves to be loved.

He wonders, though, _is_ it love?

On some level, Justin understands there are different kinds of love. Between a parent and child, sibling, friends, spouses. Each type of love has a different flavor, a different balance to it. Justin only loves things one way. With his limited experience of emotions, maybe he's only _capable_ of loving things one way. 

It's good. It's fine, really. He's happy, he's doing good things and he has friends, sort of. He has a purpose, though, and it's a good one. He aches sometimes for the people he helps but he doesn't hurt, doesn't feel grief, doesn't break apart with the pain of it all. Ultimately, everything has a purpose and no matter how he aches for someone, his faith is stronger. "You'll get through this," he says, and he means it absolutely, because he _knows_ that it is true. 

Justin knows better than to tell any human that, "This is happening for a reason" or "this is for the best" because no _human_ would understand it. They can't. Their understanding is limited to the finite: their human life that ends in death. Justin sees the world in terms of the infinite. He _knows_ that there is truth in his words; he can _feel_ it, even if he can't feel much of anything else. 

There's a beauty to this existence and he cherishes it. He's grateful and he's brimming with that unnamable feeling and his own brand of love that he has for _everything_ : for the poetry of the world that no one who actually lives in it can really understand, can really appreciate. But Justin sees it, and he loves it. 

He stands from his crouch, stretches his wings, feels the breeze ruffle his feathers and he says, "Thank-you," into the wind. Means 'thank-you for everything': for his human life, for his angelic afterlife, for the opportunity to help, for being allowed to see the world in this way, for the chance to remember that life isn't just hurt and pain and one disappointment after another. He means 'thank-you' for the wings, for the ability to fly, for the people he has been able to help, for the opportunity to help them. For the steady consistency of his faith and the realization that his prayers have always been answered, even when it felt like he was being patently ignored.

"Thank you for everything," he says. But it isn't enough anymore.

So he lets himself fall.


End file.
